Two prominent Vincentian businessmen told the Leader of SVG Green Party, Ivan O’Neal, that the core problem of the ULP regime is that they do not know how to spend money problem. Good governance is about spending taxpayers’ money prudently. Prime Minister Gonsalves says it is difficult to live without grants and this illustrates that the ULP regime is significantly weak on finance and management of the SVG economy.

The SVG Green Party strongly believes that the reclassification of public servants and teachers is a farce, since it does nothing to benefit teachers and the country as a whole. Cutting teachers’ pay is not an option. The ULP regime’s reclassification of teachers is a backwards approach to fiscal management. The ULP regime should not punish teachers to compensate for the ULP regime’s economic inability. It is not the teachers’ fault that the ULP regime is economically unintelligent.

A reclassification to lower wages would doubly impoverish teachers as they, like all Vincentians, have been severely hit by high VAT, high inflation, and an increase in water and solid waste management rates. SVG has a high public debt and it seems as if the ULP regime is trying to cut public sector wages as a way to reducing future recurrent expenditure to obey the IMF’s request to down-size the number of public sector employees. Who is running SVG - the IMF?

The teachers try their best to serve this nation and this reclassification is not helping them. The fact that the teachers had two days of industrial action shows that the reclassification is nothing but a bag of worms.

The Government team handling the reclassification process has been harping on about the fact that it is not a wage negotiation. We are aware of this. The ULP regime was trying to pull a fast one on the teachers and was caught in the act - the teachers were able to spot it. SVG Green Party is recommending that this reclassification exercise be abandoned because it lacks equity.

The way forward is for the Fiscal Advisor and the Minister of Finance to resign for the poor management of the reclassification process and the economy. SVG is financially, economically, socially and environmentally worse-off since the ULP regime took office in 2001. The ULP regime has lost its way. The ULP regime should walk away now from the political arena and call fresh general elections in SVG as they cannot competently manage the financial, economic, social and environmental affairs of our country.

The inherent problem is the economic fragility of the SVG economy. Crises and crunch points such as desperate measures like lowering public sector wages can, and should, be avoided. It is only when an economy is in a bad state that a government would give in to the IMF’s requests.

SVG Green Party would invest in the education sector, not cut money from it like the ULP regime. The education sector needs to be strengthened and teachers should be supported to educate the children of SVG.