The Highs and Lows of ULP Government

As the Election Day at Saint Vincent and the Grenadine is scheduled on December 13, I like many of my fellow Vincentians have began to reflect on the positive as well as the negative points of the current ULP government lead by the Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves. It’ll help us in judging whether the present government is worthy to be reelected.

We can take a quick look at the achievements of this government and see what this government has done over its tenure of nine years and whether by merit of their achievements they can be reelected for a third term or not

Out honourable Prime Minister, Dr. Gonsalves is facing certain defeat already as the Vincentians, both at home as well as abroad have grown more and more hopeless, dissatisfied, disgusted with the him and his regime. No, they do not have any kind of personal grudge over the Prime Minister. They all have the development of the country and its people in mind.

However, before we go into the reasons why these people are disgusted about ULP regime, let us highlight some positive areas of Gonsalves’s tenure in office. The policies, programmes as well as projects for which he must be appreciated include:

* The important put on education under the rubric of the “education revolution”
* The low-income as well as “no-income” housing programmes;
* The proactive move toward foreign policy
* The Buccama Bay Resort
* The initiation of the international airport
* A moderate improvement in infrastructure

It is true that there has been some work in the ULP regime but despite such modest gains, Gonsalves has been a miserable failure in many aspects. The government has been a complete failure in –

* Sustaining the fiscal health of the state. This problem is evident in waning revenues, wasteful expenditure and a growing deficit;
*The ULP government has failed to effectively and efficiently manage the increasing national debt
* They failed to sustain the growth in some key economic sectors like agriculture and tourism
*The government has failed to ensure the viability as well as the profitability of some state owned enterprises like the NCB, Food City, National Properties, GESCO and many more.
* The government failed to offer good governance, national cohesion as well as consensus on a range of issues.

Apart from these issues there has been a lot other issues including the rising number of crime, negligence on part of police authorities and the more publicized rape charges on the Prime Minister himself. Overall, Dr Gonsalves has offered our country terribly poor leadership over the nine years of his regime. Therefore, one can easily understand that the time has come to get rid of him and his poorly functioning government and give the new parties a chance. This may do a lot good to the country and its people. As a rational citizen of the country I am in the favor of new government and new ideas. Let us give the new a chance.


Authors Bio: Samuel Parker is a working professional who has a special interest in Caribbean and its surrounding nature.You can also check out his other write-ups and/or links to his views/comments HERE