By Anthony G. Stewart, PhD
Ralph Gonsalves is in his 80th year and has led his party for more than a quarter century. The country appears to be bankrupt with increasing unemployment, corruption, crime, poverty and low productivity.
Saboto Caesar, the party favourite to take over the leadership, has failed to gain the blessing of Gonsalves, and consequently, the country is on the verge of a recession. Had it not been for the injection of relief funds from overseas to help cope with volcano and hurricane disasters, the failure would have been more apparent.
The party’s leadership is lazy not because of lack of ability but because of the natural ageing process. Moreover, there is no credible deputy to effect a smooth transition. The current deputy is retiring from politics even though he is much younger than the current leader. The plan seems to be for the party to disintegrate when the current leader goes, as happened when Milton
Cato and ET Joshua retired.
So, the laziness in leadership extends to the failure to have a designated deputy who has the confidence of the people and would be empowered to carry out the party’s policies when the people retire the current octogenarian.
Additionally, laziness in leadership is seen in keeping Caesar, the party member’s choice, staked out in the Ministry of Agriculture all these years. Perhaps he is better suited somewhere else. It is a difficult task to manage an enterprise that the party said is “a thing of the past.”
Whose laziness is responsible for poor performance in arrowroot, cassava, marijuana, soursop, root crops, carrots, onions, garlic, bananas, cocoa, coffee, vegetables and fruits? Whose laziness is responsible for the lack of adequate marketing for the glut of plantains on the market currently?
Laziness is seen in politicians’ lack of knowledge of their role as policymakers and their incapacity to empower and appoint the best technocrats to carry out the policies. Too many lackeys are waiting around for others to tell them what they must do and are stagnating our productive sectors. Thus, there is evidence of laziness not only in leadership at the
top but also at the technical levels also.
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A well written piece by Dr. Stewart. They keep calling the NDP lazy. Laziness is like a termite eating away at the ULP and is affecting the country. Well written Doc.
This is a powerful and necessary commentary because it comes from a place of deep care for the nation’s future. It doesn’t just point out problems; it champions the urgent need for visionary leadership, strategic planning, and empowered expertise. The call for a smooth generational transition and for placing the right people in the right roles is fundamentally a call for renewal and progress. By holding our leaders to a high standard, this text reflects a hopeful belief that the country can and must do better for the people.
Laziness is the least of our worries because lots of the world’s lazy people can be found in both rich and poor countries (see https://www.scoopwhoop.com/inothernews/laziest-countries-of-the-world/).
Neither are absolute and relative wealth and poverty linked to our current economic shortcomings.
This is because SVG has moved from being a low income country to a high middle-income country under the quarter-century rule of Ralph Gonsalves (see https://www.voronoiapp.com/maps/Mapped-High-Middle-and-Low-Income-Countries-5984). His government and the ones before him have worked hard to eliminate both malnutrition and starvation, features that were common up to the late 1960s.
Still, we will never achieve high income status because we have neither the material nor human resources to do so, features that have nothing to do with which political party is in power.