Editorial – March 7 2014
The official reason given to the media for the cancellation of the press conference which was planned well in advance of the UK budgetary aid mission team that recently visited, was, “…due to the fact that their meetings with the various government ministries and departments have been running overtime.”
A new and embarrassed new Director of Information sought to ease himself with an offer, “Please feel free to make your own arrangements.”
If we accept the reason as genuine, which we know it was not, the Premier taking the opportunity to make his government and the “negotiating” team sound or look good in our eyes, said that at the end, “the feedback from the UK delegation has been exceptionally positive.”
“As a matter of fact there are a couple members on the team who have intimated that this has been one of their better aid missions in terms of the developments that have taken place, the quality of documentation, the effort that has been made…” he boasted.
It seems then that the Premier should be telling the people what really held up the discussions. Good documentation makes for smooth sailing we would think.
He said on the other hand in a usually contradictory style: “…where targets have not been reached “that was not due to any defect or deficiency on our part,” but in part the result of the workload involved and some staffing issues, while admitting that there were processes which fell short of the required grading standards agreed with the British government. He then promised that steps were being taken to address those by seeking the necessary technical expertise to bring them up to the required standard.
We know of at least one circumstance which would have caused considerable delay when it took a long time to evict persons from some meetings they had absolutely no right to be attending. One report said that the team was due to hold talks with the Premier, other Government Ministers and senior public sector officials, all expected. But for whatever reason, no mention that the team normally meets with the Opposition.
However with all the tout about hitting 90% of the target’ for its Strategic Growth Programme, anyone listening seriously to the Premier will recognise, that his report on the talks spelt nothing but doom for Montserrat.
After the UK Ministers Mitchell and Duncan and their other top officials pronouncements about their support and expectations for Montserrat, the Premier is still telling us they are “asking of us: help us by providing the justification, do well with the resources which we have given you, prove that you are on the path of development,” etc.
The premier mentioned these projects Premier: Well all of the projects, all of the capital projects have been presented.
- “We have geothermal, which is at a fairly advanced state as I indicated before.” Really? Where is the report?
- “You have the power project which is the fossil fuel plant”– The Premier said in a rating from A to C his government would get a C, and we know the British are seething over this.
- “You have the A01 road projects”– Poor spending of the funds (just as he admitted in the press conference – they still cannot make good use of project funds) what’s your guess?
- “You have government accommodation” Are we settled about all this? Parliament building, court house, etc.
- “Fiber optics” – Already promised – what is the status?
- “And you have the Port Project” Note he had no answer or nothing to say about where that stands. He had admitted before hinting government may have to borrow money. Now our information is that it is off the table.
Please note where there is no stress. The Growth Plan is in trouble. It was, when we claimed the MOU and the plan were ours, only to have that disputed by the UK. The truth of all this is that we are back at the beginning, we have gone nowhere.
Little Bay! DFID is keeping its promise, they continue to put monies into the infrastructure, but as you see from some thoughts on the great plans, there is disaster in the making. We asked this question before, “What is Plan B?”
We are told the DFID team, “ducked out” on the media. If that is true there is good reason at least from both government’s perspectives. The British very rarely shows up a government in a poor way, they leave that for the people to figure.
The last Aide Memoire however was a damning one. We promise to ‘see through’ the tactics.
