Opposition politician Conroy Huggins, who was dismissed from the teaching service under the government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate in 2021, says the government’s promise to pass a law guaranteeing the pension benefits of the dismissed workers has “brought so much pain”.
Last week, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves again defended his government’s action in 2021.
He said at a church service to mark Public Service Day that there are “still some scars”, but told the public servants, “we must not allow those scars to be perpetually scabrous”.
Gonsalves reiterated that if they return to their posts, public servants who lost their jobs under the vaccine mandate would not lose any of the benefits that they had accumulated before 2021.
“Indeed, without having that embedded in law, there’s a large number of public servants, teachers, police, and public servants who can attest to what I’m saying,” Gonsalves said.
“And I intend to put what we have been doing in practice in a legislative form, just in case that, by the hand of God, I’m no longer around, that that benefit will continue. I want to say that to you. Notice I said by the hand of God, not by any other hand, because I intend to be around for quite a long time.”
Huggins will represent the main opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) in Central Leeward in the general elections, widely expected by November, ahead of the February 2026 constitutional deadline.
“… I think it is important for us to highlight this issue … of the need for change and the wickedness that this administration has meted out on the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines,” Huggins said on the NDP’s show on NICE Radio.
“And we should never forget it, and we should hold them accountable for it in terms of what they did,” he said.
The opposition politician noted the iWitness News report on Gonsalves’ promise to pass a law enshrining the pension and other benefits of the former public servants.
“And when I saw this article …, it brought so much pain because what was done back in 2021 … it was so unnecessary. And to date, they’re still trying to justify the evil that they did, the only country in the Caribbean and the only one in the world that went as far as we went, in terms of the atrocities that they have committed against the people,” Huggins said.
“And now, after saying to persons, ‘Well, you come back, you’ll get your benefits’, now we are hearing that the persons who came back that I’m going to make you a promise to pass some law so that I could ensure you get whatever benefits you’re supposed to get — same benefits that were being said that once you come back — it’s all intact.”
Huggins noted that he had said at a previous company event that the Unity Labour Party administration are “economic assassins”.
“And what I really meant by that is that they’re taking bread out of people’s mouths. Simple. I mean, that’s the best way I could put it, so that everyday people could understand that,” Huggins said.
“They are denying people food. That’s what it is. I mean, some people have good appetite, and they out there to ‘eat ah food’, and they do all they can to eat as much food as they can. But from a policy standpoint, they were removing food out of people’s mouth.”
Huggins said the government is “literally removing the ability of people to earn, to take care of themselves and to provide for their families.
“And this is something that we as a people, which has caused us great pain within the teaching fraternity, the police force, medical fraternity, doctors, nurses, you name it, and also private citizens. The private sector, because some private sector employers adhere to what was being said, and as a result, they sent people home.”
Huggins said he did not oppose people who wanted to take a COVID-19 vaccine.
“But I was totally against the state insisting and forcing people to the degree to which they went,” he said, adding that the government pressured people who did not take the jab.
“… they threatened to fire and then fired persons and wrote some nonsensical letters to the people, and say, you have abandoned your job, and you have [been] deemed to have resigned. … I received one of those letters, but I received it from the principal’s office.
“So you see the kind of nonsensical thing I’m talking about? I was on the job for the entire period of time when I received my letter. So when I talk about economic assassination, I am not just talking from a theoretical standpoint.”
Huggins called on people who were affected directly or indirectly by the vaccine mandate “to stand in solidarity with those who were affected, and those who are affected.
“I could give you stories after stories of our persons who are affected by this thing. I know it is a sensitive issue, and different people experience things differently, but some things which persons shared with me, it’s seriously, seriously painful.
“This is one issue that I think that we should never allow it to go to rest. And as you were saying earlier,” Huggins said, adding that the NDP has repeatedly stated that it would reinstate the former public servants “affected by this draconian measure … with full benefits, all benefits intact.
“And that is something that I want the nation to understand, to remember. And as we get deeper into the elections, that you keep this in your mind,” Huggins said.
Meanwhile, speaking on the same programme, NDP Senator Shevern John, a former teacher, said she believed that the prime minister’s announcement was informed by the views on the ground.
“It’s all elections. I believe that they have done their polls. People are talking and they realise that ‘We are really losing this thing. So, in order for us to get a comeback, in order for us to look good, let us bring this to Parliament.”
John, however, said that the affected workers have suffered.
“You know the mental damage, my own brother in studio, Conroy; you know the mental damage that it has done to our teachers and other public servants. It is not easy when you wake up and you were in a job, and here it is that you have nothing and you don’t know where to turn, because this government really looked down on these teachers and other public servants,” John said.
She noted that she was in Parliament when a government MP said, “Do not let your unvaccinated spittle get on me!”
“That’s the [disdain] to which we who decided not to take something into our bodies were treated, and nothing — I’m talking about personal standpoint — can compensate for that scorn that this government has meted out on the citizens of St. Vincent and the Grenadines,” John said.
In 2020, John, then a first-time candidate, came 69 votes short of unseating the ULP’s Montgomery Daniel, who was re-elected to a fifth consecutive five-year term in office.