Opposition Leader Godwin Friday has responded to Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves’ questions about his recent meeting with investors in Canouan.
“Well, what you want to know is basically my business. You want to know who I talk to, what I do and so forth? I am preparing for government,” the opposition leader said on Boom FM.
I don’t conceal nothing, because I am basically preparing for government. I talk to business people, I talk to farmers, I talk to fishers. I talk to everybody, because I want to have a good sense that when we form government, the day after the election, I can hit the ground running,” Friday said.
He was speaking on Boom FM on Wednesday, the morning after Gonsalves announced that the general election will be held on Nov. 27.
On Tuesday, Gonsalves told party supporters and media audiences to ask Friday about the boat on which he travelled, where he went at Mandarin hotel for two hours and who he met there.
“You know what they conspiring? Some people who don’t want change in Canouan want to hug up Friday for him to continue to defend the non-activity which is taking place in the north of Canouan,” the prime minister said.
Before coming to office in 2001, Gonsalves had complained about the New Democratic Party (NDP) government leasing much of the island to investors.
However, his Unity Labour Party administration has leased even more land to the investors.
Then in 2023, Gonsalves began to complain about the limited revenue coming from the development in the north of the 1,800-acre island, two-thirds of which are in the hands of investors, sandwiching the indigenous population in the middle.
“I must say this, I mentioned that there are many issues which are plaguing what you may call broadly, ‘the project’,” Gonsalves said in September 2023 after visiting the southern Grenadine island.
“For instance, for the last five years, the government has made hardly any money, a number approaching zero for alien land holding licenses and transfer taxes, because there are properties up there to be sold and the developers are not pushing the sale. They’re just keeping the land there within the company,” he had said on NBC Radio two years ago.
Gonsalves complained about the issue again in February 2024, even as the government was being asked to spend US$40 million to rehabilitate the Canouan Jetport on which it had spent EC$20 million 17 years earlier.
The jetport in Canouan was closed for night flights and all flights had to be approved 72 hours in advance as the government was working to rehabilitate 1,000 feet of the runway, leaving a usable length of 1,140 meters in the interim.
On Tuesday, Gonsalves announced that he wrote to the investor on Oct. 24.
“I told him that under the lease that the purpose has not been fulfilled, regrettably, in spirit or in letter. And all the new development of the land, the leased land, governed by the lease, had been at a standstill since the end of 2017,” the prime minister said.
He said he told the developer that he had had a lot of patience over COVID and the volcanic eruption of April 2021.
“But they ain’t do nothing afterwards. And I want back all the land up there in Canouan,” Gonsalves said on Tuesday.
“I tell them I had a valuation done, how much it is, and without prejudice to our rights, I say I don’t mind have a conversation with you, and this is the sum of money that I will pay you, but if you don’t accept what we’re talking about, we will take certain other steps.
“The days are long gone that if you lease land, I want to develop land in St. Vincent, and you ain’t do it as a foreigner and we are in government, we will make sure, either you do it, or we take it back.”
The prime minister said that when people go to vote in Canouan, they were voting “either for the developer in the north, or they voting against.
“Friday is on the side of them up there, and the ULP is on the side of making sure that what has to transpire up there has to work in the interest of the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.”
However, Friday noted that when former prime minister, the late Sir James Mitchell and the NDP leased the land and the resort was built, the ULP complained that too much land had been leased to the investor.
“When they came in office, what did they do? They afforded 20 acres of land to the developers,” Friday said.
“He’s saying that since 2017 they ain’t doing nothing. 2017 until now is what? It’s almost a decade. I mean, what foolishness! You’re quite right. He sound like — you say losing it. But he lost it,” the opposition leader said.
Friday is making his second attempt to lead the NDP to victory 25 years after it was voted out of office.
He has been representing the Northern Grenadines since 2001 and failed in his first bid to lead the NDP to victory in November 2021.