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Jomo Sanga Thomas is a lawyer, journalist, social commentator and a former Speaker of the House of Assembly in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. (iWN file photo)
Jomo Sanga Thomas is a lawyer, journalist, social commentator and a former Speaker of the House of Assembly in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. (iWN file photo)
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By *Jomo Sanga Thomas

(“Plain Talk” Jan. 17, 2025)

Budget 2025 was presented with the usual fanfare: plenty of clapping, desk thumping, laughter, and jeering. For almost five hours, Finance Minister Camillo Gonsalves laid out our government’s plans for the next 12 months and beyond. The minister’s attempt to paint a pretty picture failed to impress. Ultimately, the ritual, a blur of words and an exercise in stamina attempts to justify the government’s borrowing policies.

Disasters, as reflected in the COVID plandemic (2020), the eruption of La Soufriere volcano (April 2021) and Hurricane Beryl (July 2024) can never justify our government’s carefree, reckless approach to borrowing. In his presentation, Gonsalves said that the government borrowing is not profligate, but viewed in the context of 2025 and the impending elections, his words ring hollow. The Gonsalves government is pimping these disasters for electoral gain.

The notion that the government’s policies are primarily directed at helping the poor must be questioned and rejected. The governing elite is busily enriching themselves while conspiring to prolong their less-than-stellar performance in the seat of government.

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First, those who predicted a bevvy of taxes in budget 2025 should retake Politics 101. A ULP government led by the politically savvy Ralph Gonsalves will not slap taxes on an economically depressed, disaster-weary population in an election year.

The ULP government charges its political opponent and all Vincentian patriots who put their minds to matters of state as scaremongers. It’s a tired and worn tactic by all politicians who employ a mode of aggressive attack as their main ploy of defence.

Beyond the word buzz and smiling faces is a stark reality. Behind the EC$1.85 billion budget numbers is a rapidly rising debt-to-GDP ratio, currently pegged at 93.6%. The debt-to-GDP ratio grew by nearly 20% in 2024. By our prime minister’s own admission, this amounts to a hook in the gill of the nation.

This year, SVG committed to repaying nearly EC$350 million in debt and interest. If the government’s numbers are believed, 38 cents of every dollar generated in revenue goes to pay the debt. When public salaries and Sinking Fund contributions are added to the national bill, there is hardly any money left to carry out the other government functions.  

A consequence of the foregoing is that the government routinely violates the legal limit of EC$85 million on the overdraft facility. In 2024, the government exceeded the legal limit by EC$30 million without seeking parliamentary approval. The government’s inclination to spend wildly and recklessly knows no bounds. It must be brought to heel.

The Finance Minister argued that Budget 2025 is a people-centred and recovery-centred budget. But is it really? Budget 2025 may be more accurately described as a construction budget. A look behind the construction flurry reveals the government’s lack of care and concern for the very people it claims to be concerned about: the poor and vulnerable.

The government disclosed that it intends to construct or rehabilitate six schools and 11 clinics. Why leave these schools and clinics to sink into disrepair before attending to them? Imagine the premier girls’ school, which has existed for over a century, locked up for years with its yard rapidly becoming a forest. Imagine further clinics, schools and police stations with broken windows, toilets, leaky roofs, and disease-causing moulds that have existed and have persisted for years while the government loudly proclaims its love for the people.

How prudent is a government that proposes to build a school at Brighton on the whim that the East St. George constituency is the only one without a secondary school? The East St. George Constituency is less than an hour’s drive from the West St. George and Carapan secondary schools. Just like the modern port for which the government has offered neither economic feasibility nor justification except to say that Port Kingstown is old and Port Campden Park is inadequate, the government goes headlong, borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars for costly, unnecessary and fiscally irresponsible projects.

If the government is serious about the needs of the poor, it will use some of these wasted millions to hire more counsellors and teachers at our schools. Many students need to speak through their anger and concerns with trained professionals. The failing rates at our schools are very high because many students need remedial attention. Train and hire specialist teachers in math, the sciences and remedial teaching skills.

The lack of trained psychiatrists remains a vexing issue. Scores of prisoners languish in prisons because there is no trained specialist to test their fitness to plead. There remains a burgeoning mental health crisis in SVG that demands urgent attention. Money saved by scrapping, downsizing or rehabilitating some buildings and facilities could be diverted to correct these glaring needs and deficiencies.

During the estimates, Camillo Gonsalves disclosed that the government intends to borrow upwards of EC$260 million from Taiwan in 2025 — more than a quarter billion dollars. I sincerely hope that my ears betrayed me and that I heard incorrectly. Unlike other institutions (World Bank) and governments (Venezuela), Taiwan has never offered a single cent in debt relief. Close to 40% of the foreign debt is owed to Taipei. This relationship is incestuous at best and anti-national at its worst. There is a sufficiency of evidence that in collusion with Gonsalves and his clansmen, Taiwan has been improperly interfering in our country’s internal affairs.

As the debate unfolded this week, there was no presentation on how the government plans to tackle the growing poverty rate, which now stands at 4 out of every 10 Vincentians or over 40,000 nationals, high youth unemployment of plus 40%, and a galloping crime rate most glaringly reflected in record official numbers of homicides of 55 and 54 in the last two years.

PM Gonsalves said that he would always choose debt over death. He really meant debt that allowed him to prolong his rule. As the 2025 Budget Debate comes to a close, any keen observer can safely bet that the twin scourges of debt and death will accompany us into the future.

*Jomo Sanga Thomas is a lawyer, journalist, social commentator and a former Speaker of the House of Assembly in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

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