Kingstown or Beggars’ town?

Editor: Once the jewel of the Caribbean, Kingstown today looks desperate and run down, not worth a State capital, let alone a town for a king. It more resembles those grey, crumbling cities we know from Communist/Socialist countries, such as Russia and Venezuela: a few oversize ‘bragging’ Govt structures, everything else in shambles.{{more}}

Here, beggars are lining the sidewalks, vagrants interfering with the few visitors who these days find their way to ‘Kingstown’. Tourists prefer to go to St Lucia, Grenada, Barbados, where lovely pedestrian zones and boardwalks along the sea have been incorporated long since. Visitors like to promenade and sit in cafés along the shoreline, sip a drink and have a snack. Not here. There are no cafés left in the Kingstown. The few, such as the Bounty, Time Out and even ‘high family’ run ‘Soleil’, located in the best location, have closed shop! So have numerous businesses: Sprotts, Centrex and many, many more; even ‘Save a Lot,’ once started by Govt ‘to blow CK out of the water’. Tell me, how to run a country, if one can’t even run a café or a supermarket?

In chaotic Bay Street, one can observe cruise ship tourists turning back. Clogged up, with trucks, push-carts and vendors, the latter desperate for a sale, lining the archways left and right. Even a single person has trouble squeezing through. Poor vendors! One can’t blame them for trying to make a living. It’s their only way, although now, there are more vendors than buyers. Heaven knows how they are surviving.

While Kingstown is located in one of the finest natural settings one can find, in its sorrowful state it now scores last when compared to neighbouring capitals; dirty gutters, stench of urine. Cobblestones missing in Middle Street and a ‘hospital’ missing the most basic supplies. High-ranking officials seek treatment abroad. Government buildings such as the Financial Complex and Police Headquarters are in dire need of a paint job and repairs. Not to mention crazy traffic, the exhaust of which will make your head spin. A priority, totally overlooked, should have been a bypass highway linking the Leeward and Windward sides of the island. They couldn’t even build the much touted Cross Country Road, but now are boasting of a “tunnel under Cane Garden!” LOL! What will happen when the promised thousands of ‘AIA generated’ tourists bear down on us? That is, if real Jumbos, not tiny ‘mosquito planes,’ ever land? Millions borrowed to build what is termed ‘the gateway to tourism’, not a cent for ‘Kingstown’! Where is the infrastructure to accommodate visitors, to bring some sense of order to the existing chaos, reduce soaring crime and most of all, clean up our capital the way it deserves?

‘Worldwide recognition’, really? Do visitors trust a Government whose closest friends are guys the likes of Gaddafi (mass murderer complete with female ‘bodyguard’). First state visit, Lukie there too, lol, what poor judgement! Berlusconi (sex parties, corruption)! Chavez, Maduro (their economy in ruins)! Assad, (secret meeting in Damascus), bombing the crap out of his people in Syria!

You call that recognition? Show me your friends and I tell you who you are! No wonder we have no tourism left to speak of! Would the world trust a Government saying; “lewd sex tapes don’t matter”?

With 14 years in power and what has become of Kingstown? SVG on the brink of financial collapse, its National Bank lost, sold out! Their response: Our beautiful VISION 2020; the largest, most comprehensive and most visionary manifesto in CARIBBEAN HISTORY: A NEW city, a NEW tunnel, a NEW port, a NEW cruise ship pier, a NEW second hospital, the completion of a NEW airport, Vision 2020 mind you. Anyone laughing? Who pays for all of this? Oh, why not a NEW PM too?

‘MORE POOR RELIEF’ at least makes sense! They say they LOVE YOU ? If they love you so much where are the 1,000 jobs promised ‘three times in a row’ to our young people, 70 per cent of them unemployed? So, is there any light at the end of the ‘Cane Hall Tunnel’? If so, it must be A Loving RED Light and RED LIGHT means STOP! FOOL me once, FOOL me twice, even FOOL me thrice. Don’t try to FOOL me ‘A FOURTH TIME IN A ROW” !

Disillusioned!

PS: Wake up Opposition! These are the points you should be playing!