Southern Grenadines MP Terrence Ollivierre has expressed confidence that he will be elected to a sixth consecutive five-year term at the next general election.
“… I don’t care who they bring. I hear you’re talking about padding up and hitting six, but I don’t care who you bring everybody getting six; everybody getting six. I done do five and I now going for six, everybody for six,” he told a New Democratic Party (NDP) campaign event in Union Island on Thursday.
“So, you could go and eat bread, and you could go and chook coconut, you, too, getting six,” he said in an apparent reference to a social media video showing Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves removing dry coconut from the shell.
Ollivierre, a resident of Union Island, where Hurricane Beryl damaged or destroyed about 95% of the buildings on July 1, 2024, invited residents to reason with him.
“Seven months after Beryl, are you satisfied?” he said, noting that the opposition voted in Parliament in support of an EC$136 million recovery package.
He pointed out that the money was to go toward rebuilding homes and helping people who lost their livelihood.
“But when you look at what is happening in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, especially in the Grenadines, I say to you, if it wasn’t for private investors, where would we in the Grenadines have been?”
Private investors have been helping to repair homes in Mayreau, Canouan and Union Island, the three non-resort southern Grenadine islands that were ravaged by the storm.
In Union Island, the investor is focused on Ashton while the government’s recovery efforts are concentrated in Clifton.
However, Ollivierre and other residents have said that much more has been done in Ashton than in Clifton.
“Where the money? You got the money to help the people. Why are you not helping the people?” Ollivierre said.
“Look what is happening in Ashton. Houses are being restored; roofs and roofs are going on. But what has happened to Clifton, for which the government has responsibility? Nothing at all, and you claim that you love people?
“When you’re chooking coconut, bring them on here to fix the people’s houses in Clifton. That is what they want.”
He reiterated that the opposition voted in support of the recovery package and suggested that opposition MP have a say in how the money is spent.
“You know what they said? They are not a unity government. So, it means that we in the opposition have nothing to do with the matter. No money comes to the people in the opposition. The government has all the money. And what you do with the money?”
Ollivierre said Canouan would have been “at the same state” had it not been for the private investors.
“When you come to Union, oh, God, is a shame…, nothing at all.”
The campaign event was held after a tour of the island by NDP President and Leader of the Opposition Godwin Friday, party chairman and West Kingstown MP Daniel Cummings and Central Kingstown MP, St. Clair Leacock, an NDP vice president.
Speaking to people today, people in Ashton, you realise what has happened… Man, I have never seen so much grief on people faces. I have never seen so much disappointment on people”
He said that some contractors have said they are not working for the government anymore because they are yet to be paid after rebuilding up to five houses.
“They have families too, and if you don’t pay the contractors, how can they pay the workers to continue the work, to assist the people of the Southern Grenadines?” Ollivierre said.
“And it’s a burning shame, but you’re coming down every week, and you’re giving people the impression like if you’re doing millions of things in the Grenadines.”
The opposition MP spoke of the government’s reaction to an iWitness News video documenting people’s comments on the situation in Union Island six months after the cyclone.
“You get on your high horse, and you start to ride, and you want to carry down the people, and you want to trample upon them because they spoke the truth. They spoke the truth, and that is what is hurting them even up to today,” Ollivierre said.
“… call the election and let the New Democratic Party take over and give a better life to the people of the Southern Grenadines. We are ready and we are more than capable,” Ollivierre said.
General elections are widely expected by November, ahead of the February 2026 constitutional deadline.
Ralph Gonsalves is running a social media campaign advocating he is involved with and a man of the people, nothing is further from the truth. The sly Marxist communist wishes to stay in power forever and a day but people are waking up and seeing him for what he is.