This stratagem of patronage has consisted of the selective grant of concessions on an ad hoc basis, to entice different entrepreneurs and economic groupings to support Government’s activities. If one understands this, then one need not be surprised that the response of the Government to the Chamber’s statement has been a pained and irritated complaint that the Chamber and its members have not been thankful for the long list of concessions (gifts from its armoury of patronage) which they have received.

 

This stratagem of “patronage concessions” was obvious to some of us involved in the 1997 General Elections campaign. A series of promises of a specific nature were made to different individuals and  groupings in the society. We knew, from practical and observational experience, then that this network of promises of concessions of one kind or another would subsequently tie the Government’s hands, and compromise and then paralyse, its capacity to make effective economic policy. That is where we are today.

 

This no more evident than in Government’s policy towards the banana industry. Kenny Anthony’s New Labour Party chose not to  follow-up the carefully designed policy of my administration in late 1996 in, first, rationalising the institutional arrangements of the industry through the Banana Amendment Bill of September 1996, as a prelude to what I called in the House of Assembly at that time “full privatisation”.

 

That Act was passed with the assistance of then Hon Julian Hunte and other Labour members of Parliament in the House, after being dealt with in a specially designed Select Committee of the House, which, as members of the Chamber will recall, was open to their participation.  The Act was described by Mr. Patrick Joseph, on the evening of its passing as “a moral victory for the farmers”.

 

That Act, quickly forgotten in the flush of Labour victory and subsequent “real privatisation”,was designed first, to reduce and eliminate the continual demonstrations of dissension in the farming areas - which it did; and secondly, to signal to the European Union that the ground was ready for an extensive programme of economic and technical assistance (following the discussions on the Cargill Report).

 

That programme of assistance was formalised in the agreement with the EU which I signed in December of 1996. It is that agreement which, after three years of Labour Government, has barely been implemented - a situation which has left the productivity of our industry in continual decline.

 

This policy of my Government, relieving the then SLBGA of some of its debt, providing extensive resources for irrigation, and technical assistance for modernisation of farm practices, was in fact replaced by a new one. This was the “stratagem of  patronage” approach including the so-called “wiping out” of the whole debt by the SLBGA, and the offloading of the resources of the industry to the Banana Salvation Committee, with complete disregard for other players in the industry The result is current history, and the current paralysis of a Government flailing its arms in the face of negative internal and external impacts on the industry.

 

As I have said elswhere, I will not blame Mr Patrick Joseph of the then Salvation Committee for trying to get the best at least cost to himself and his followers, in that situation of give-away politics (the politics of “pay back time”) Pay back time politics was designed to reward those who had been tied into the pre-election system of political support. That political economy was also evident in the Police Force and in the Prisons with results that are now clear to all.

 

But as I have said recently in relation to the Eagle Air affair ( and as the Chamber will surely appreciate) while it is the business of the entrepreneur to seek to maximise his profits and to maximise the conditions for making profit, it is the particular business of Government to ensure that their are conditions of fairness and equity between competing entrepreneurs, and in the interchange between the entrepreneur and his clients or customers. That is why, for example,  though there is free competition between different supermarkets, Government, in the interest of equity and fairness regulates the prices of certain basic commodities).  

 

I have spent so much time on the banana industry, not simply because it is one of the basic legs of our economy - an economy  whose decline simply reflects the decline of the industry. But also because the stratagem of patronage and selective concessions (gifts by the grace of Government as a reward for present and future allegiance, displays of appreciation, and accomodating behaviour) of the Kenny Anthony Government towards the banana industry, is symptomatic of his Government’s general approach to other sectors of economic activity. It is in regard now to the failure of this approach, that the Government’s Press Secretary displays the barely concealed vexation of his, and his Government’s, reply to the Chamber.

 

This  policy (which I prefer to call a stratagem) reflects itself in:

 

(1) A haphazard manner of decision-making without the required substantiation or explanation of particular policies. This is demonstrated in the Government’s approach, for example, to decisions about Government construction of buildings - NIPDEC, the new Government buildings slated for  the Cul de Sac Highway, the continually changing cost of the proposed new Prison, and the unexplained use of NIS funds for non-revenue generating construction. It should by now to all that the critieria for determining these activities are politcal rather than economic.

 

(2) Unstable taxation policies, the result, first,  of Government’s desperation for revenue, and secondly, of a laxly considered approach to external advice - an approach borne of inexperience and a refusal to utilise the services of experienced public servants, because they are not considered to be “one of us”. This discrimination within the Public Service is one of the worst disservices that the Government has done to the prospects for institutional stability in our country - not to talk of the humiliation and psychological damage wreaked on particular individuals who have devoted themselves to their country’s service.

 

(3) Erratic management of statutory and public corporations - the impending disaster in the finances of SLASPA is a case in point. The blatant use of the National Conservation Authortity as an instrument of political patronage and potential vote-getting is another. The disorder in policy making in the tourism sector -with its selective and prejudiced allocation of incentives - is yet another.

 

(4) Incomplete and inconsistent reporting to Parliament of the Government’s financial affairs and intentions. The clearest example is the Helen Air Guarantee Affair, shielding vital information from the public. Yet another the Prime Minister’s assertion that he and his colleagues have simply decided not to “take” the backpay, but to “give” it to the Belle Fashion farmers - as if the money derived from taxpayers and entrepreneurs is simply there to be given and taken on the basis of personal or ideological predilections.

 

(5) Finally, there is the general indecisiveness in economic planning - best demonstrated in the case of the banana industry - but generally visible in the Government’s trial and error approach in the important sector of education.  The mixed signals which Government has given in the air transportation industry, as the competing companies grapple for market share and domination in a limited arena is another example.

 

In a series of  addresses, in October 1996 and after  to the St.Lucia Chamber of Commerce, the Association of Indigenous Bankers, to the SLHTA and to the Insurance Institute, I began to lay out a view of the necessity for St Lucia’s  “balanced economic development”  in response to the major changes occuring in the world, and to the obvious “maturing” of the banana industry as the major growth pole of the economy. These and other pronouncements were lost in the headlong rush to the siren songs of “time for a change”

 

We have had the change. It is immeasurably worse than anyone could have imagined in 1996/97.

And the situation of our economic system and social system (ravaged by Government’s erratic approach to crime), is also immeasurably worse.