Dear Editor:
The following is a direct quote from the MCAP (Movement for Change and Prosperity) website.
“• Persons without indoor toilets are being provided with this basic need.”
Believe it or not. The Premier of Montserrat’s NUMBER ONE PROMISE for the 2014 Election campaign is to build indoor toilets for those who currently don’t have. Yes you heard right. The Premier said it on Radio, he said it several times on the political platform and he has written it on his party website under his name. Really Premier! After 6 years in office, this is your defining moment?
I know most people are like me and wondered if it could be true that there are persons in Montserrat still living with outside latrines or no toilet facilities at all for their homes in the year 2014.
Well after getting over my initial shock at the revelation, I asked someone who should know if this scandalous situation was true. I was told that it was a sad but true fact. Indeed I was told that there are official documents to confirm that many people have no running water indoors and no toilets, and that I would be surprised at the number.
Later I received a document which contained among many other sobering statements, the following paragraph.
“The closure of the shelters for vulnerable people is very welcome though DFID noted social welfare concerns about the care of residents that will be pursued separately with MoHSS (Ministry of Health and Social Services). DFID will also seek clarity on decanting the “temporary wooden family units” that house around 69 families; as well as the 80 plus homes that have no indoor water supply or WC facilities.”
The above statement came from the AIDE MEMOIRE of the MONTSERRAT BUDGETARY AID DISCUSSIONS 24 – 30 JANUARY 2013, between the Government of Montserrat and DFID. Apparently DFID and Government of Montserrat had received the results of a survey showing over 80 homes in Montserrat with no indoor water supply or toilet facilities. DFID was therefore seeking clarity from the Government of Montserrat as to how much money was required to deal with the issue.
If this new initiative to sort out the problem of lack of indoor facilities was being proposed by a prospective Opposition party or Independent candidate for the upcoming elections, it would have sounded much different.
BUT no; this proposal is coming from the Premier who has been at his current job as Minister of Finance and Economic Development for four and a half years, and who prior to that was the Minister responsible for Housing and the Environment for nearly two years, and immediately prior to his near five years was responsible for development. So the question has to be asked. What has the Premier been doing over the past Six Years? He did nothing as the Minister responsible for Housing to alleviate the toilet situation; he did nothing as Premier and Minister of Finance to allocate the necessary funding, so that people could live in dignity.
Now in a mad scramble for votes Mr. Meade is finally rushing to install indoor toilets for people; not because he genuinely cares; but in an effort dole out favors so that the people he has abandoned for so long could hopefully feel obligated to vote for him.
Since February 2008 the Premier has been in a position to address this scandalous issue, and he had a willing partner in DFID. Remember that DFID’s main area of expertise and focus (outside of Montserrat) has always been Poverty Alleviation. DFID was and is no doubt willing, and certainly able to address this matter; but then as now, our Premier pays scant attention to social issues. The overriding MCAP philosophy is that if your house is in bad shape the occupants are simply untidy or nasty. It is what they say with their own mouths. They have little or no appreciation for economic hardship and some individual’s genuine inability to help themselves financially.
If Premier Meade had any real concern for the poor man’s plight, this problem and a number of others would have been addressed years ago. However, it is now in his eleventh hour scramble for votes that he is promising a solution for what he has supposedly finally recognized as a ‘basic need’.
Make no mistake about it; this is not a change of heart on Mr. Meade’s part. MCAP is being forced to address certain social issues by DFID. Premier Meade interjected himself into every discussion about social welfare and fought to maintain the status quo of inadequate payments; but now his administration is being forced to relent or lose DFID funding for some of their other pet projects. Thank God that Don Romeo persisted in championing the cause, and thank God the British government officials have a conscience.
Mr. Meade boasts about using European Union money and not DFID money, as if it is some great achievement. What he will not tell you is that it is because he never wanted to do the program in the first place why he never made the required submission to DFID for the money which they repeatedly offered. Now he realizes that votes will be hard to come by, he has gone and used EU money which could have been used to buy hospital supplies and equipment. This use of EU funds for a purpose that was clearly going to be covered by DFID is a prime example of Mr Meade’s poor leadership and decision making skills. It is a fundamental mistake that he makes repeatedly.
The only basic need Premier Meade really cares about is his basic need for votes. Indoor running water and toilets is indeed a basic need in any modern society; and as such no incumbent leader should deny his people a dignified existence for years and then tie the delivery of basic needs to votes in an election year.
Those people in need should take the toilets for sure; but reject Reuben Meade and the MCAP Regime for making them wait unnecessarily for this very basic need.
If you are reading this folks and have a computer, Listen to Mr Meade’s speech on the MCAP website and hear him in St. Johns boasting about it. Imagine in 2014 you are boasting about Toilet and indoor plumbing! No listen!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11J9POQiiKc#t=37 it is somewhere around the 5 minute mark, so you don’t have to listen to all of the ranting.
