The Leader of SVG Green Party, Ivan O’Neal, was on desert survival training in Libya as a member of the British RAF in 1958, when colonel Gadaffi overthrew King Idris. Ivan O’Neal went on to Singapore in 1959 when the strong man and intellectual Lee Quan Yu took control of Singapore.

The SVG Green Party Leader was significantly impressed by Singapore’s social, education and economic strategy, that successfully propelled Singapore from a swamp to being the country that receives more direct foreign investment than the whole third world put together.

Lee Quan Yu made high-quality education free for all from pre-school to university immediately. He brought in tough laws on crime and the causes of crime, a large budget on education as a long-term investment to raise the Singapore’s economy.

The Singapore economy consists of a number of variables, whereas the economy of SVG is driven by one variable – tourism. The madness of moving from bananas to mass tourism as the driving force of the SVG economy is tearing up the eco- and marine environment. We must have severe sympathy for the ULP regime that does not know better.

There are many long-term disadvantages of not educating people, both to society and individuals, such as:

the individual is not empowered to decide his/her destiny;
foreign investors are reluctant to invest in the country as employees take longer to train;
adult literacy education would become a full time and expensive ‘recovery’ process;
the nation is always lagging behind others and never gains economic power.

SVG Green Party genuinely believes that an educated society is a skilled society. Education empowers the individual and society as a whole. Our present education system is inadequate and it is the children in poor families that miss out most.

In the 1940s there was informal immigration to Aruba and Curacao. In the 1960s and 1970s there was informal immigration to England, Canada and the USA. This informal export of human capital (labour) helped the SVG economy. The SVG Green Party supports the policy of export of qualified human capital. There is a big global demand for formal human capital export.

The SVG Green Party is highly inspired by the Singapore economic model for sustainability - namely high-quality human capital and high-quality universities. The ULP regime’s economic model of leasing and selling land for foreign investment is not sustainable.

The SVG Green Party believes that the four pillars to success are faith, discipline, determination and the appropriate skills. The SVG Green Party has the four pillars to convert SVG’s weak and fragile economy into making SVG the Singapore of the Caribbean.

We, in the visionary and socially-conscious SVG Green Party, are also fully aware that the ULP regime is significantly weak in managing the economy and that economic growth is driven by imports at $5 to $1 of exports. The ULP regime is hungry for power and continues to borrow heavily for capital expenditure on non-cash cow projects. The SVG Green Party is fully justified to call for fresh general elections in SVG to avoid national debt becoming unsustainable with very serious consequences to the SVG economy.