Hurricane exposed gov’t neglect of Grenadines, MPs tell Parliament  

Hurricane Beryl has exposed the Unity Labour Party’s (ULP) neglect of public infrastructure in the Grenadines, the MPs for those constituencies have told Parliament.

Opposition Leader and MP for the Northern Grenadines, Godwin Friday and Southern Grenadines MP Terrance Ollivierre each made this point in Parliament on Thursday as they debated the EC$136 million supplementary estimates approved in response to the impact of Hurricane Beryl.

They reminded Parliament of the government’s inaction amidst repeated complaints about dilapidated wharves and the absence of navigational lights in the Grenadines.

The category 4 cyclone killed six people all of them in the Grenadines when it made landfall on July 1.

The Southern Grenadines suffered the brunt of the impact, with 95% of buildings there damaged or destroyed, according to government estimates.

Friday told Parliament that the recovery is an opportunity “to reimagine how the Grenadines is connected, islands among themselves and also with the mainland. St Vincent.

“It’s not just the telecommunications that fail us. The infrastructure in the southern Grenadines, the jetties, are woefully inadequate, and this happened long before Hurricane Beryl,” Friday said.

The opposition leader said the opposition has spoken in particular about the situation in Canouan, which has had an unpaved temporary jetty for more than a decade.

“When I stood on the deck of the Express coming up from Union Island and we docked in Canouan when you look out — and it had been raining – and there are puddles of water, and what should be a jetty, but it really is a dirt track, and people trying to get their goods through without going into puddles,” Friday told Parliament.

“When it’s not wet and raining, it’s dusty and a hazard.”

He noted that the supplementary estimates include EC$3.5 million for the construction of temporary jetties in the Southern Grenadines and rehabilitation of damaged wharves across the country.  

“Let me suggest that the time for temporary jetties is over. The temporary jetty in Canouan has been there for 20-something years. Inadequate,” Friday said.

He said he had also seen the inadequacy of the jetty in Mayreau before the hurricane.

“… but certainly, more so now, is considered unsafe when the boat is berthing.

“The jetty in Union Island — totally inadequate. In this day and age, one boat can go in stern-to at a time,” Friday said.

“And so now we see that we have a crisis of this magnitude, where our archipelagic state is ripped asunder by a terrible hurricane, and those people who are in the worst-hit part of the country are almost unreachable.  Can’t communicate with them, and difficult to access in an effective way, especially when it’s time to carry the heavy equipment and so forth to do the clean-up.”

He said the post-hurricane recovery is an opportunity to fix the problem because it is not just a matter of convenience for people in or travelling to the Southern Grenadines.

“It’s not just a convenience; it is not just about commerce; it’s not just about business — making it easier to transport goods back and forth. It is also now we see about safety and being able to respond effectively in a disaster such as this.”

Friday said he had observed the difficulty in offloading heavy equipment in Union Island.

Pleading for wharf in Canouan since before 2005

Meanwhile, who has been MP for the Southern Grenadines since March 2001, told Parliament that he had been pleading since Sir Vincent Beache — who retired from electoral politics in 2005 — was the minister responsible for seaports, for the wharf in Canouan to be fixed.

Ollivierre said he had also cited the problem that only one boat at a time can dock stern-to in Union Island.

“I have been told that the Mayreau Wharf, even before Hurricane Beryl, has been compromised.

“So, when the boats go to dock, they allow the people to stay off a good way, let the ramp go down to see if it is safe and then they allow them to go back on,” Ollivierre said.

He said that one night after the hurricane, he reached Canouan at midnight and the wharf was packed with people.

“… but it had rained that day, but people with pull man and so all through the mud, all through the puddle, because they cannot see,” the Southern Grenadines MP said.

He said that Julian Francis, who was a senator from March 2021 to July 2023, had promised that the government would pave the surface of the temporary wharf.

“… we are still waiting for it to be paved,” Ollivierre said, adding that the supplementary estimates include monies for temporary jetties.

“I know the jetty in Canouan, I ask in this honourable house, how long can something be referred to as temporary? It has been temporary for too long, and it’s time for us to fix the wharves in the southern Grenadines, to make the lives of the people of the Southern Grenadines better,” Ollivierre said.

“We need to do that. We owe them that,” he said.

“If you check the Hansard, almost every year or every two years, every whatever, you’ll see I’ve asked questions concerning the development of the wharf on this island.

“And I’ve been given answers, I’ve been given estimates, I’ve been given contractors. I’ve been given all of that over the years, but nothing has been done. Maybe this is the time for us to get to that stage…

“I don’t think you could get more catastrophic than this. But if it was worse than this, to evacuate people from the islands would have had a very serious problem, in the ferries getting to and fro.”

‘rubbish answer’ about navigational lights

Ollivierre reminded lawmakers that he had complained to them about the absence of navigational lights.

“I get a kind of little rubbish answers. But right now, even the ferry is telling you, when you get a certain hour, they’re not going into Mayreau,” he said.

He said the ferry would pick up passengers in Mayreau and then travel to Union Island, meaning that passengers have to wait for as long as the ferry stays in Union Island before travelling north.

“And whether they spend two, three hours, whatever offloading, you have to stay there because if it reaches a particular hour, they’re not going into Mayreau because of the navigational lights.”

The hurricane knocked out electricity completely in Canouan, Mayreau and Union Island.

Ollivierre said he went to Union Island one night after the storm and “only one or two” navigational lights were working.

“And I must commend the captains because they have the bright light that they shine. They have to shine this light to know where to go and to get into the harbours.”

He said that sometimes when the ferries get to Union Island, they impose a 20 or 30-minute turnaround time.

“… because they don’t want to stay too late because of the navigational lights. And we must fix those also now and do the job correctly so that our people would know that even while travelling on these boats that they are safe,” Ollivierre said.