St. George's Grenada, February 4th, 2010: Imagine, the Minister of Finance attempting to chastise this side about being honest about the root causes of the economic crisis in this country. The Minister of Finance, who presided over the preparation of a manifesto, despite the warnings from this side that the promises were unrealistic – who presided over the preparation of a manifesto, which committed them to ill-advised policies.

Many of these same policies and promises have had to be retracted, leading to a crisis of confidence in this country today. Imagine this same Minister of Finance, lecturing us about honesty and the global crisis.  Can you imagine that Mr. Speaker, a most interesting case of hypocrisy.

I can still hear Tony Boatswain telling him, time and again that these promises were unrealistic.  I understand then even some of the Minister of Finances’ own early advisors, some of which have now distanced themselves from him, did try to warn him against these false promises, against the false hopes that he was perpetrating, to no avail.

It is as if the Minister of Finance was in a deep sleep, and he just woke up to discover it is 2010 and he has suddenly come to certain realizations. It is as though he has suddenly come to his senses.  But we understand that the Country is truly facing extraordinary times, no lecture required!  We accept that some of these difficulties do relate to the international crisis, but let me repeat, it was this side who advanced this in 2007 and we were ignored by the then Opposition and now Government.

But the global crisis did not act alone in accounting for why this country has been so badly affected. Nothing the Minister of Finance stated directly addresses the matter of the other major contributing factors.  But we have already provided a listing of many these other factors.

We will not be distracted, for we are clear that the gallarying by the Minister, was nothing more than a failed attempt to make some smoke because he does not want us to recall the promises he made in the 2009 Budget. No, he does not want us to assess for ourselves, his performance against these same targets-against the priorities that he established in 2009.

But as a responsible Opposition such an assessment against target, such an audit, if you will of “actual” against “promised”, must be undertaken.  So how well did the Minister do against the commitments which he entered into with the People of Grenada when he joined them in a “contract of faith” with his Government in the Budget of 2009?

I shall be relying heavily on the Minister’s own Budget address in 2009.

Economic Management/Mismanagement

The Minister for Finance in the 2009 budget presentation said the following;

Our priorities for 2009 shall be as follows:

1.    Strengthening Economic Management:

The Minister’s priority was to set up a debt management unit.  Mr. Speaker a Debt Unit was always established and operational when the NDC took Office in July, 2008.  But in addition to this Unit under the NNP Government we had also established a limited life sovereign Debt Re-negotiation Team.

It is well known that Economic management is more than paying down the external debt at the expense of the domestic debt. The unpaid claims in the Treasury have increased to nearly EC $80 Million during certain periods of this last fiscal year. But when the NNP was in Office, Oh how the Minister of Finance did parade and gallivant about NNP.  No gallivanting now though, not even a mention. Why?

Mr. Speaker, we said last year during the Debate that the Government would have to come back for a supplementary budget. This they did sooner than even we had predicted, when they piloted a bill to borrow     EC $20 Million. In addition, Mr. Speaker, the Government is now using the overdraft of E.C. $40 million as opposed to the $20 million limit maintained by the previous administration. We predict that they will soon have to come back, seeking authorization to borrow again, if they are to undertake even a meaningful fraction of the programmes read out by the Minister of Finance.

Furthermore on this posture of Economic Performance, the divestment programme was expected to yield EC $ 44 Million in 2009.  What happened to this budgeted item?

2.    Improving the Business Climate:

The World Bank indicator showed Grenada slipped three places.  Since the Minister has relied and in some sense celebrated these indices when he was in Opposition we join with the business community to ask him how he accounts for this and how this stacks up with his idle boasts of improving the business climate. We contend with sound reason that the business environment has deteriorated, not improved since the NDC came into Office, largely due to the erosion of business confidence. 

Small businesses, the economic backbone of much of the middle and lower class have fared particularly badly. Can the Minister truly be unaware of this I ask?

3.    Fostering a genuine Multipartite Partnership:

In our view this partnership appears to be in the mortuary.  The relationship with the Executive Bodies of the Private Sector had met its hidden agenda.  The Union leadership appears to have lost its voice in defense of the workers.  Some of the politically active and vocal church leaders appear to have lost their voices.  Getting the NGOs and in particular their chief lady whip to frustrate investment and chase investors have succeeded.  Having achieved the above objectives there is no real need to expend energy in this partnership anymore, so it is “Still Born”.

As I suspected there will be attempts to recommence the Sustainable Development Council, which I remind you is a creature of the NNP, and which began in1996.

4.  Accelerating Tourism Development:

Tourism growth and receipts have declined. So too have the prospects for successful tourism development. We have regressed in Tourism. The sector experienced negative growth, negative employment, negative income, and runs the risk of losing major project sponsors as will be detailed later.

The Minister of Finance boasts that one of the government’s achievements was the agreement with the Hotel Association to forego 50% GCT with an understanding that they will not reduce staff.

The Minister as usual did not tell us whether this was successful.  We are not surprised.

We know for a fact that scores of workers were sent home temporarily and otherwise, because the Hotels experienced extremely low occupancy.

NNP Perspective week ending Feb 12th, 2010

To be continued