INSIDE GRENADA DECEMBER 25,2007 by Lloyd Noel In my first article in January this year, I wrote – “that as we say good bye to the old year, and summon up enough strength to welcome another New year with hopes and dreams for better days ahead – even the faiths of the true believers are very sorely tested and challenged, and open to doubts. The end of 2007 is again upon us, so that by the next time you are reading another article – if the Almighty permits me the treasured gift of longer life – the new “2K8” would be right here among us, and as per usual – being the dreamers and faithful hopeful we have become accustomed to display in these Isles – most of us will again be hoping against all odds, that the new year would bring about some worthwhile changes for the better. The doubters and un-believers, and those who hold unto or try to maintain the philosophy – that the truth of a doctrine is to be judged by its practical consequences or results – they will, no doubt, continue to see only the dark tunnel, and fail or refuse to imagine or hope that there is some light at the end thereof. But my considered position, as I try to weigh up the conflicting and often – times mystifying circumstances that confront us – is that as a people who have exerted so much patience and forbearance for so long, we cannot give up at this stage – because as the good book said, He can only help those who are prepared to help themselves. It seems that the only thing that ever changes is the figure that represents the New Year – “like 2K6 to 2K7 to 2K8” – but every thing else more or less remains the same. The final figure for the New Year’s Budget also changes – from $630 millions this year to $751 Millions for next year – but the various pie-in-the-sky sums that make up the final figure are always in the same mould, with the same intentions. Those sums are never reasonable and well-thought out estimates, based on past performances and genuinely based economic projections that stand any chance of becoming a reality. On the contrary, they are always propaganda oriented guestimates intended to convey the wrong impression, and fool those who fail to read between the lines, or only listen to political platform brango, or more than likely have very short memories – if any at all when it comes to figures and past promises. The projected emphasis for the past four years or more – but definitely since the society stated seeing, or experiencing, the very negative and backward looking trend of youthful gang violence among our youths - has been on projects and programmes for the benefit and up-liftment of our nation’s youths. In fact, to showcase and portray the powers-that-be good intentions and recognition of both the plight and the importance of our youths – a full youth minister was appointed to deal with that portfolio, and the corner stone of that Ministry’s authority has been the Imani Programme. The rhetoric and nice-sounding phrases have been in abundance about that project – but can those in any authority truthfully say it has been for the benefit and welfare of the few youths who had managed to get into the project? True enough, the paltry stipend had been increased from $500.00 to $700.00 per month during this year. But many months some youths have not been paid and had to wait into the next month to receive the small sum. And over the last two years all that was happening, especially in Government ministries and schools, was using those youths to fill vacancies – in jobs where the salary of a regular employee can pay two or more youths, yet after a year none of them get appointed but they are sent home and new ones taken to repeat the process. That method of operation cannot be in the best interest of those youths. In this year’s Budget we were told of plans to up-grade all playing fields Island-wide, and even provide floodlights so that the youths can play and practice at nights. Except for La Sagesse and Progress Park, nothing was done on any other playing field to write home about – and, of course, the two fields in question were only up-graded because of Cricket World Cup for practice pitches. In the New Year’s Budget, the promise is that Cuthbert Peter’s park in Gouyave will be converted in to a “Mini stadium” for the Western side of the Island. With elections in the air – very probable. It is against that level of performance, or lack thereof, that I maintain that the powers-that-be are purely opportunistic, and not really seriously planning for that very important sector of the society. Whether it is the incumbents who remain in control next year and beyond, or those waiting in the wings to take over control of the affairs of the state – the issue of how we deal with our youths, what programmes are put in place for them, and how seriously we view their responsibility in the years ahead – these and some more behind the scenes will determine where we go from hereon. On the broader front, as we look back at “2K7” and try to look ahead at “2K8” – there are so many unsolved mysteries, and issues crying out for solutions or explanations to clear the air – that it is difficult to determine where we begin to chart the road ahead. The national debt is like a millstone around our necks, but little or nothing has been said or proposed to deal with that burning issue. And because the Government’s image and reputation have been tied up and involved in so many financial scandals and court battles, and with all sorts of crooks and con-men and disruptable scoundrels – it is very unlikely that Banks and other financial institutions of high repute and creditable standing, will want to be associated with that lot to help us out. As for governments in the Global market place, this Government closest political bed fellows are Cuba, Venezuela and now mainland China. Cuba can and I suppose will continue to supply medical personnel of which that country have endless surplus. Venezuela and Hugo Chavez do have the hard cash and oil, but the President wants to be number one in the Caribbean basin and south America – to be able to stand up to the U.S.A. and its President; so all we would be getting from that country is the oil under the “Caribe” project, that really makes no difference to the economical situation as far as gas prices are concerned, and we have to pay back the reduction in price down the road. As for China and its millions of un-employed, and grossly over-rated world standing (in my opinion) in the field of economic progress, and its ability to assist small states like ours worldwide – we will get thousands of Chinese labourers to come and work here for peanut wages, but that policy and system will be a very retrograde and dangerous state of affairs in our social setting. So what price will we have to pay to ensure “that the so-called progress continues”? And talking about image and reputation of our government and the scamps the powers –that-be have been dealing with for years. In a U.S. Court decision in San Jose in California, on the 10th December, 2007, one of the off-shore Banks crooks, David Frank Rowe, who had set up business here in 1998/99, as Cambridge International trust – he pleaded guilty to wire fraud and agreed to pay back U.S$9.9 millions to some of the persons he defrauded in that scam. He will be sentenced early next year, to prison no doubt. His off-shore Bank was licensed in St. George’s in Grenada, on the 11th October, 1999 – as Cambridge International Bank and trust Company Ltd. (CIBT). After the 1999 General elections in Grenada, in which the NNP won all (15) fifteen seats – that crook openly admitted giving the winning party hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars in the election fund; no doubt to keep them in power to help him maintain his crooked presence in St. George’s in Grenada. What shameful accreditation? As we were entering this New Year from 2006 – the news flooding the headlines was about big money payments from some Russians to government people in connection with our off-shore oil deposits, and the U.S. Court Case against the Russians and minister Bowen, by Grynberg and his Company. That matter is still in the system for a final solution, but in the 2008 budget nothing of any note was said about that aspect of our economic salvation. From all accounts the emphasis is again on tourism, but talking to some business people in the Mall on the Esplanade in St. George’s, even the usual daily ships that come to our shores with foreign visitors – they are not producing anything like we have been getting two years or so ago. Not as many ships are coming now-a-days, on the one hand, and from those that do come on the other hand, the visitors are not spending as much as in the past and many are not even going into shops in the Mall nor in others outside the Mall. The Large buses that take visitors on island tours are the only sector that continues to be patronized by the daily Tourists. The real reason for this decline is not quite clear, but the constant bad image and damaging reputation those in authority have been attracting in the last two years or so, from their association with crooks and fraudsters that always involve corruption of one kind or another – surely could not have helped. Even a press report coming out of the recent CARICOM Heads of Government meeting in Guyana, was suggesting that the sharp and unfriendly exchanges that surfaced between our Dr. Mitchell and the Barbados Prime Minister, Owen Arthur – was as a result of the cooling relationship that has resulted, because the Barbados Prime Minister has been keeping his distance from ours, since all those corruption allegations have been hitting the headlines about the Grenadian powers-that-be. I suppose it is a straight case of “show me your companions and I can tell who and what you are”. And now the General Elections in Barbados have been scheduled for January 15th 2008, which must have been in Prime Minister Owen Arthur’s head for some time now – the issue of one’s friendship and public association with persons of suspected and dis-creditable image and reputation, can have damaging consequences. It is against all the foregoing circumstances and the prevailing conditions in our midst – that I wonder and ponder aloud, what is in store for us in 2008? The so-called progress continuing perhaps – the declared “happy hour Budget” signifying the end of one era and the new beginning of another – the new labour going “all the way with Benji”? Whatever it may be – do have a prosperous and happy New Year and God’s blessings in abundance.