By *Guevara Leacock
On A View from the Outside this week, we turn our attention to the state of the country’s finances 10 months after the change of government, with the view being that the New Democratic Party (NDP) inherited a genuine economic mess and has been honest about how big it is. However, they have not yet told Vincentians what it is going to cost to fix it.
On Tuesday, the leader of the opposition said that without the windfalls left behind by the Unity Labour Party (ULP), this government could not meet its payroll. We on A View from the Outside went looking to test that assertion in the government’s own figures, the ones the prime minister laid in Parliament on Aug. 27 in answer to questions from the opposition. Aside from the lie from the opposition, what those figures show is extremely troubling.
Between April 1 and July 31, the government collected EC$290 million in current revenue, against EC$324.4 million for the same four months in 2025. That is a reduction of EC$34.3 million, or 10.6%.
Property tax came in at EC$7.7 million against EC$11.4 million in 2025, a reduction of EC$3.7 million. Taxes on goods and services, which is mostly VAT, fell from EC$103.7 million to EC$95.2 million, and taxes on international trade, which is what Vincentians pay at the port, fell from EC$80.8 million to EC$69.9 million. The only tax collection that remained constant were income and profit taxes.
Government spending, however, went in the other direction, from EC$312.9 million to EC$344.9 million, an increase of EC$32 million. EC$134.9 million of that was spent on wages and EC$44.3 million, in four months alone was spent on servicing interest on debt.
The government will argue that the overall deficit for those four months was EC$57.8 million against EC$125.3 million in 2025, which looks like a remarkable turnaround. But look a little closer. Included in the new overall deficit is the EC$52.7 million from the sale of the lands at Chatham Bay, which is counted as capital revenue. Take that one-off sale out and most of the fiscal improvement disappears. It is worth noting that we cannot sell Chatham Bay twice so the question is what next.
This new government inherited a serious economic problem, as every Vincentian knows, and they have been honest about it. Unfortunately, it is causing them serious problems in running the country and is also causing the anxiety of Vincentians who voted for change to spiral out of control.
We on A View from the Outside remind you that the government inherited a public debt of around EC$3.5 billion, which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) placed at 113% of everything the economy produces in a year. This has climbed by 45 percentage points of the gross domestic product (GDP) since 2019, with debt service swallowing something close to 39% of revenue. The IMF has also said that St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) has been at high risk of debt distress since 2016. It is unreasonable and unfair to pin this economic distress on a government that has been in office for 10 months.
There is no doubt that some of the excessive borrowing in which the previous government engaged paid for key infrastructural developments in SVG such as building schools, police stations, sea defences, the sports facilities at Diamond, the port in Kingstown, and the international airport. But being able to point at a building or a retaining wall is not the same as being able to pay for them. There is no doubt that borrowing your way to 113% of GDP with interest payments of EC$44 million every four months is irresponsible and the ULP deserved to be voted out of office for it.
In February, the NDP government brought to Parliament a budget of EC$1.9 billion, nearly EC$200 million bigger than the 2025 budget. They projected current revenue at EC$906.9 million and a capital programme of EC$577.3 million. No new taxes were introduced, in keeping with their manifesto promise. Public assistance was doubled to EC$500 a month, school and college registration fees removed, regional examination fees covered for form five students taking up to nine subjects, and tax-free cost of living support for public sector workers. On top of all that, the government committed to reducing the debt burden to 60% of GDP by 2035. Every one of those measures is good and will help Vincentians tremendously. The difficulty is, however, what happens when you set them beside the revenue figures for April to July.
Do the arithmetic yourself. SVG has earned EC$290 million in revenue over four months, if the rest of the year runs the same way, the county will earn around EC$870 million against a budget that assumed earnings of EC$906.9 million. There is gap and at the moment that gap can only be closed by borrowing more, by collecting more, or by spending less. Remember, the government has ruled out new taxes and has increased what it spends.
Think about the cost of living crisis and how it affects you and other Vincentians. In May, the government brought in a 90-day emergency relief package and took the customs service charge and the excise tax off the diesel VINLEC burns to make electricity, costing some EC$1.65 million in lost revenue to the treasury so that households and small businesses could feel the benefit. Have you felt it?
In June, the fuel surcharge hit an all-time record of EC$0.74 a unit, higher than anything seen in 2022, and in July it went up again to EC$0.83. The prime minister said that without the intervention it would have passed 90 cents and he may well be right, but a bill that rises more slowly than it otherwise would have is still a bill that is rising.
Then there is the citizenship by investment programme (CBI) written into the February budget as new money that would help ease the economic burden in SVG. The programme was to be launched by the middle of this year. It is now the middle of September and Vincentians have not had an update about the programme. The budget put the expected earnings from the CBI programme at only EC$10 million, which, for a programme that the government has marketed as changing the country’s economic fortunes, is very modest. SVG has never run such a programme and is the only independent member of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) that never did. The government should keep Vincentians updated about the progress and plans to introduce the CBI programme.
And what has become of the forensic audit? The NDP has campaigned on this for years. Before the general elections of November 2025, the Member for East Kingstown said plainly that a forensic audit has to happen, and framed it not as a hunt for individuals but as the ordinary thing any new management does when it takes over. No date was attached to it then, and ten months on, we on A View from the Outside can find no public record that one has been commissioned. This is a manifesto promise that many are eagerly awaiting. The government must not forget it.
Meanwhile, the ordinary audits, the ones that are supposed to happen every year, are years behind. The Director of Audit’s report on the public accounts for the year ended Dec. 31, 2022 only reached the minister of finance on Apil 25, 2025, and when it did arrive, it recorded around EC$9.8 million in transactions that were not properly accounted for, including EC$3 million that left the sinking fund expenditure account and never arrived in the sinking fund bank account. Vincentians learned about that two and a half years after the fact. We need to become better at regulating and closing our books as a general part of responsible fiscal management.
Revenue is falling, spending is rising, debt service is taking four dollars in every 10, the one-off sale that altered the last set of accounts cannot be repeated, and the new revenue that was supposed to arrive by mid-year has not arrived. This is not scandal or theft we are talking about. Vincentians voted in a government that promised to tell the truth about the economic affairs of the country and the government should get on with doing so.
The government should publish a proper medium-term fiscal plan showing, year by year, how the debt gets from 113% of GDP to the 60% it has promised by 2035. It should tell Vincentians plainly what it intends to do about the revenue shortfall, and if that means fewer concessions, or better collection of the property tax that just fell by a third, or a smaller capital programme, then say so now rather than in next February’s budget.
It should report the public finances to Parliament every quarter as a matter of routine, published and explained, so that Vincentians learn how their money is doing from their own government rather than from a question asked by the opposition. It should bring the director of audit’s reports up to date and give the country a date for the forensic audit it promised, because a promise with no date is a comfort to a fool.
So in the coming days, when somebody tells you the country is broke because of this government, ask them who borrowed the EC$3.5 billion. Further, when somebody else tells you the finances have been turned around in 10 months, ask them what happens next year when there is no Chatham Bay to sell.
*Guevara Leacock is a barrister at law of Lincoln’s Inn in England and an attorney at law in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. He has a keen interest in history and politics and is a social commentator.