Patrice Nisbett slams 2017 Budget, accuses Harris of trying to convince everyone that regression is progress

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Photo: Hon. Patrice Nisbett

CHARLESTOWN, NEVIS – Nevis’ lone opposition parliamentarian in the St. Kitts and Nevis National Assembly says local, regional and international financial and economic institutions have confirmed that the St. Kitts and Nevis’ economy is contracting.

Hon. Patrice Nisbett says while the economy declines, citizens and residents of the twin-island Federation are “finding themselves trying to survive a vindictive, self-serving, uncaring and unethical government, which is lacking the ability to adequately govern, by trying to convince everyone that regression is progress.”

Nisbett, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Attorney General referred to reports from the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). 

“The various reports have all confirmed that the growth rate in St. Kitts and Nevis has moved on a downward trajectory since Timothy Harris is in charge of managing the fiscal affairs of this twin island state of St. Kitts and Nevis. That’s the reality. What Premier Vance Amory said in his 2017 Budget Address in the Nevis Island Administration and what Timothy Harris said in his Budget Address is that a 3% growth rate is an achievement,” said Nisbett.

“The question that we must ask is, what our new reality is today, in St. Kitts and Nevis, because when the Team Unity Government took over in 2015, St. Kitts and Nevis under the Denzil Douglas Government had a growth rate of about 7%. That’s what the CDB, the IMF and the ECCB were saying, and has this government been able to sustain this growth rate of 7%. Have they been able to sustain empowerment in the country?,” Nisbett asked on NRP’s weekend radio programme “Target” on Choice FM on Saturday.

“Prime Minister Timothy Harris said his theme is about accelerating growth and we have heard all kinds of statements by this government about how economic growth has increased but yet still, there’s been an obvious slowdown in economic output, as the result of the mismanagement of this administration. That’s the reality since February 2015,” declared Nisbett.

Condemning Prime Minister Harris Government continuing pattern of behavior not to accept responsibility for the country’s socio-economic pitfalls, Nisbett said: “The present government like to use the word inherited. They like to say that they inherited PEP, they inherited SAFE and all kinds of things, but it is true that they inherited a robust economy poised to an upward trajectory, due to strong and vehement policies that were implemented by the former government headed by Dr. Denzil Douglas.”

“I want to ask my people, are we happy today with a growth rate of three percent? Are we happy that we now have a growth rate of 3% that is no longer leading here in the Eastern Caribbean and the wider Caribbean? We were number one in growth, number one in CBI and many other indices; we were number one, here in the Caribbean. We are now number one in crime, because we are averaging 30 murders every year, since the government took over,” Mr. Nisbett told listeners.

Nisbett stood in solidarity with the five-member Federal Parliamentarians sitting on the Opposition benches, as a result of Speaker Michael Perkins’ removal of Senator Nigel Carty from the National Assembly last Thursday for ‘laughing,’ while he made his presentation in response to the 2017 Budget Address, which Carty has labelled “as a delivery on a street corner talking garbage.”

Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, the Right Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas has described Harris’ Budget for the 2017 fiscal year as, “an attempt to paint a rosy picture through hyperbolic instances.”

Dr. Douglas said the “Draft Estimates tell the story of gloom and doom.”

*This article was posted in its entirety as received by SKN PULSE.  This media house does not correct any spelling or grammatical errors within press releases and (or) commentaries. The views contained within are not necessarily those of SKN PULSE.