By *Jomo Sanga Thomas
(“Plain Talk” Oct. 31, 2025)
Over the next 26 days, PM Gonsalves and his clansmen will pull out all the stops: attempts at bribery. Trickery. Mamaguy. And even an event, executed by one or more of their agents but blamed on opposition elements, with the sole aim of gaining sympathy and votes on election day. All Vincentian voters have to do to stop this wrecking ball of a government from doing more damage to our economy and country is to remember not to forget.
Voters must ask themselves one simple question: Are your lives better now than when the Unity Labour Party (ULP) returned to power on Nov. 5, 2020? If the answer is an emphatic no, as it is bound to be, then the mantra for the next few weeks must become ULP must go. Voters must break Gonsalves’ spell over our country. Our very future as a nation depends on it.
ULP politicians are a corrupt, greedy and selfish bunch intent on pimping their way to another electoral victory. They care little about national development and much more about perpetuating their hold on power. How else can we explain the frenzied pace at which this government has moved to attend to the poor and vulnerable sections of our population? The quick fixes to people’s homes, roads, clinics and the giveaway of millions of dollars to persons who did not earn it and do not deserve it. The millions spent in this election cycle to keep Ralph Gonsalves’ family, close friends and foreign elite in power will create a massive burden for future generations.
Citizens observing the wild spending and empty promises must not allow themselves to be fooled. Motorists and pedestrians alike must be happy that some of the long-neglected roads are being paved or pitched. Still, they must be equally scornful and dismissive of a bunch of politicians who think so little of them to believe that election-time giveaways and superficial quick fixes are enough to win their hearts and votes.
The ULP says it is campaigning on its entire record since 2001. There can be no serious argument that some things have changed for the better. The Argyle Airport has made travel to North America and Europe more accessible, but the collapse of LIAT, whose demise Gonsalves presided over, has turned regional travel into a nightmare. The airport also has a positive knock-on effect on tourism. Thanks to the government’s commendable efforts, more Vincentians are trained and certified than ever before. However, there is no educational planning. Scholarships and financial assistance are awarded to win political favours rather than for academic pursuits that genuinely address our country’s pressing developmental needs.
A new EC$750 million port opened Saturday on a prayer: it will serve our future needs. No persuasive reasoning has ever been proffered on feasibility or profitability, what we will export, or why the government rejected the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) study, which showed that a US$10 to $20 million rehabilitation of the Kingstown wharf could have adequately served our needs for years to come.
Lest we forget, the port went into expensive repair before it was completed. Keen observers of the port opening ceremony were stunned to learn that the Port construction came in tens of millions of dollars under budget. Why then was the government compelled to seek Parliament’s approval for an additional EC$23 million for port modernisation? Recall as well Gonsalves’ declaration that the government saved EC$20 million by allowing AECON to source the sand used at the port locally rather than import it.
Plain Talk is at a loss as to how to square this circle. Both can’t be true at once. It’s doubtful that these disclosures can pass the sniff test. Something is amiss. A grifter’s alert ought to issue with stop notices pending forensic audits of Argyle airport. Port construction. BRAGSA. PetroCaribe. National Lottery. The British colonialists jailed those with sticky fingers for far less than what a serious investigation would discover.
Yes, there have been some improvements, but they have been on the margins of societal development. These barely touch and concern the lives and well-being of the majority of our people. Compare and contrast what the ULP government brags about with the squalor at Little Tokyo and beyond, the disintegration and collapse of public infrastructure, schools, government ministries, courts, clinics, and police stations.
ULP asks citizens to take the long view. We should. The promise to be tough on crime and the cause of crime has been reduced to a hollow slogan. Four Vincentians lost their lives violently in the last few days. Who is the face of crime and drugs in SVG now? Fear stalks the land.
When the Gonsalves’ ULP won power in 2001, poverty stood at a wretched 37%. By 2019, a leaked poverty assessment study revealed that one in every four of our citizens was mired in poverty. Gonsalves tore up the report rather than releasing it. Camillo, his finance minister son, said the government earmarked over EC$4 million for a new study that was to be released in 2025. We are 26 days from the 2025 election, and there’s no study.
The government has not done a poverty assessment in 17 years. Its failure or refusal to conduct and release the poverty numbers is a serious indictment. But ULP loves poverty. It loves to prey on the poor and vulnerable, especially at election time. Poor people need to run and hide when ULP politicians proclaim love for them.
The employment scorecard is not much better. The police force is now an employment agency rather than an institution committed to protecting and serving. Migration to anyplace but here in search of a better life is the primary preoccupation of the young and not-so-old. Without the escape hatch of forced departure, SVG would be a smouldering cauldron verging on explosion.
Add to the mix the high cost of living, a massive debt burden of plus EC$3 billion, the reckless waste and spending of government resources, arrogance, disregard and neglect of the affairs of state by the governing elite, the wicked vaccine mandate, which unnecessarily destroyed the lives of hundreds of public employees, then it is clear that ULP’s mantra: Labour Love presents a clear and present danger to our country.
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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