Photo Caption – Dr. Timothy Harris and Nicholas Maduro
BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, March 29th 2017 – The “inappropriate begging” syndrome of St. Kitts and Nevis’ Prime Minister Dr. the Hon. Timothy Harris has been highlighted by the Federation’s Leader of the Opposition.
“Investors and developers have been turned off. We have a begging prime minister. This is not good. The image of the country has changed dramatically and it has to be rebuilt,” said former Prime Minister, the Right on. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas.
Persons have been using social media critical of Prime Minister Harris for soliciting 50 “Petrocasas” houses from Venezuela’s President His Excellency Nicholas Maduro during a recent visit to Caracas at a time when Venezuela is experiencing severe economic problems.
They are of the view that Prime Minister Harris should have taken a cheque instead of a begging bowl to Caracas since he claims to have millions of dollars in surpluses.
“The preliminary data show that for 2016 the fiscal operations resulted in a recurrent account surplus of $128.3 million, an overall surplus of $130.3 million and a primary surplus of $154.7 million. These three accounts to which I have referenced are part of what is considered the economic classification data. They are the principal accounts to which persons who do assessments of our country and every other country look for a measure of its performance. Yes, this is an international indicator of how well a country is managed,” a recent release from the Office of the Prime Minister quotes Dr. Harris as saying.
Since 2015, Prime Minister Harris has received nearly US$25 million in cash from the Government of Venezuela.
The Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro confirmed Friday that his government had requested help from the United Nations to deal with the “economic and social wounds” caused by the country’s deep recession.
“I have asked the United Nations for support to attend to the economic and social wounds affecting our people due to the economic war and the abrupt fall in oil prices last year. Although we have recovered somewhat this year, (the price of oil) is still low,” announced the head of state.
Maduro indicated that UN assistance would be directed at helping his government respond to critical issues in the health sector and especially at boosting the supply of medicines.
The country is lacking roughly 80% of the basic medical supplies, according to the Pharmaceutical Federation of Venezuela.
Bread lines are a common sight across much of the capital, and Maduro’s government has vowed to take over any bakeries in Caracas that don’t use 90% of their flour to produce canilla, a type of French bread.
New data from an annual national survey by three of Venezuela’s major universities and other research groups has found that more Venezuelans are skipping meals and the percentage of malnourished is growing. The number of survey respondents who reported eating two or fewer meals per day nearly tripled from the previous year’s survey, rising to 32.5% in 2016 from 11.3% in 2015. The authors of the study estimate that some 9.6 million Venezuelans eat two or fewer daily meals. A majority of respondents said they lost weight in the past year, dropping an average of 19 pounds (8.7 kilograms).
