BASSETERRE, ST KITTS – After nearly two years as ministers in the Team Unity Government, Minister of Health, Hon Eugene Hamilton and his Junior Minister, Sen. the Hon. Wendy Phipps, have highlighted their misunderstanding of the process in preparing the National Budget.
Former Deputy Prime Minister Dr Earl Asim Martin, who served three terms as minister of health in previous Labour Party administrations, referred to comments by Phipps who is quoted as saying that ‘lots of things we would like to see St Kitts and Nevis have in terms of improvement ….but we have to temper that with the fact that we can only do what we can afford to do.’
“Wendy Phipps just find out that in 2016 that we can only do what we can afford to do. In their manifesto they promised all the fancy things they can do for the people of this country. Timothy Harris and Team Unity promised the people a liveable wage. Timothy Harris and Team Unity promised that each household earning less than $3,000 monthly will receive an additional $500 monthly. Timothy Harris and Team Unity promised the PEP workers a permanent job and a wage increase. Now she tells the nation that Timothy Harris and Team Unity can only do what they can afford to do,” said Dr. Martin, who added: “Is it that they are setting the stage for the poor performance in the health and other sectors and that things will get worse in 2017?”
“They have deceived the people for the last 18 months,” he said quoting one businessman who stated: ‘If you think things are hard now, wait for 2017.’
Dr. Martin also commented on the remark by Ms Phipps, a former Executive Director of the St. Kitts and Nevis Chamber of industry and Commerce, that the government’s programmes ‘will be largely be driven by tax revenues and benefit the people of St. Kitts,’ that ‘government will have to be able to pay its bills from the taxes it is able to collect ….especially when you realise that St. Kitts and Nevis only has a population of 50,000 people which means that our tax base is relatively small and you cannot necessarily tax a population to death to get what you wanted done.’
“Is it only in 2016 Wendy Phipps knows that the population is 50,000? We have had that population long before 2015 and 2016, but she now wants to tell the people of this country that because in 2016 there is a population of 50,000 you cannot tax the population to death,” said Dr. Martin, who pointed out that the Labour Administration of Dr. Douglas of which he was a part of, did not solely rely on taxes to provide the necessary services to the people and develop the country at the same time.
“We expanded the economy. In 2008 with the international financial and economic crisis, people could not believe the development that was still taking place in St. Kitts and Nevis. We had a government that was innovative, far-sighted and had a people-centred vision with the expansion and restructuring of the Citizenship by Investment programme, which the then opposition tried their best to destroy and eventually destroyed,” he told listeners.
