On Thursday 12th April 2007 a front tyre of an 8 year old American-made fire tender at E.T. Joshua airport burst and there were no spare tyres. The E.T. Joshua airport had to be closed for about 9 hours until a spare tyre was borrowed from St. Lucia. In December 2006, the Prime Minister compared poverty in SVG to Bangladesh and Haiti. The SVG Green Party has no knowledge of fire tenders in Bangladesh and Haiti operating without spare tyres.

The incompetent and spineless ULP regime attempted to save face in an article dubbed ‘Get the small things right’ stating that “the failure and/or refusal of the Fire Brigade and/or the Office of the Commissioner of Police to purchase and stock spare tyres for the Fire Tender at the ET Joshua Airport is a clear case of not getting the small things right”, thus putting the blame on the police and not on the Minister for Airports.

The Minister of Airports should take the blame for the careless, irresponsible and dangerous operation of the emergency fire service at E.T. Joshua airport. Ivan O’Neal, Leader of SVG Green Party, with over 31 years of honourable and distinguished military service as a safety engineer, says it is the responsibility of the Minister of Airports to carry out important, periodic inspections of the emergency fire services and to conduct annual emergency fire drills in his presence to ascertain the strengths and weaknesses of the fire service. The Minister of Airports is supposed to communicate frequently with the fire service and with the commissioner of police to find out if there are any ongoing problems.

Fellow Vincentians are asked to sit up and take note that the shortages of spare tyres at E.T. Joshua airport did not happen overnight. The non existence of spare tyres has been an ongoing problem for a number of years, according to research by SVG Green Party.

E.T. Joshua airport is a public facility. Just imagine a situation where a passenger aircraft has a fire on one engine. If the pilot calls for an SOS engine landing at E.T. Joshua airport and finds there is no fire tender to smother the engine on fire to prevent any loss of life on landing.

The SVG Green Party has, with a very high degree of justification, been calling for fresh general elections to push aside the highly incompetent, careless, irresponsible and weak ULP regime. The ULP regime lacks ability and is clearly endangering people’s lives. They cannot create a good functioning government. The fire tender incidence is yet another huge blunder that the ULP regime has got badly wrong.

Logistics, i.e. planning ahead, is essential to running a good government and a country safe for all. Many lives are being lost through increased violence and many livelihoods are suffering through increased ULP regime economic inability and incompetence. We must pray to the Almighty for deliverance from this really unable ULP regime.