In 2001, Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, is on public record in saying fish is important to the bi-lateral relations between Taiwan and SVG. Taiwan has been getting stinking rich of SVG for 25 years. Taiwan’s presence in our country is a major obstacle to sustainable development in SVG.

In 1987, Taiwan registered about 115 deep-sea fishing vessels with SVG for tuna fishing in the Atlantic Ocean. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) stipulates that Taiwan’s fishing vessels operating in the Atlantic Ocean on SVG’s licence must be registered in SVG as locally-owned fishing vessels operated by Vincentians for the financial benefit of SVG. In order to comply with ICCAT’s requirements, a company based in Geneva with close Vincentian connections, has Taiwan’s fishing vessels registered in its name as a local company in SVG. Taiwan cream-offs over 3 billion dollars annually using SVG’s deep-sea fishing licence but does not pay tax.

SVG Green Party is saying that since the Taiwan fishing vessels are registered in the name of the Geneva based company as a Vincentian entity operated by Vincentians for the financial benefit of SVG, Taiwan should pay standard tax annually on the 3 billion dollars fishing income earned under SVG’s fishing licence via the locally-based Geneva company.

The ULP regime has turned a blind eye to Taiwan not paying tax on its fishing on SVG’s deep sea fishing licence. Meanwhile, we have many families suffering under VAT and increasing water rates, the Grenadines wharf tax, high level of unemployment, families unable to pay their children’s school fees, high rates of electricity, spiralling high cost of living, serious crime rates, thousands of young people unemployed and unable to find work, queues for medical treatment, farmers impoverished and the rural economy decimated. What goes on behind the scenes for Taiwan to get away with non-payment of taxes?

Taiwan’s has a massive high-quality sand mining operation in St. Vincent that creams off millions of dollars annually from mining Rabacca sand. This operation is done without public knowledge as to how the revenue from this important indigenous resource of sand mining is distributed to the Treasury and Taiwan.

Taiwan is not a friend of SVG. It is here for the massive amount of money it can earn from our fish licence and sand mining, and the freedom to carry out agricultural experiments on SVG’s soil at will. More seriously, though Taiwan invests money in a social engineering strategy, it is unwilling to set down a factory unit, a fish processing plant and has not employed one Vincentian on its 115 fishing vessels since 1987. Shame on Taiwan, shame on the ULP regime! The young people of SVG want sustainable development to create jobs and put money in their pockets.

SVG Green Party is calling on Taiwan to stop insulting the people of SVG with its frequent social engineering monetary gifts. We do not want a culture of dependency encouraged by your handouts. We demand you pay the SVG Treasury the hundreds of millions of dollars you owe SVG in tax for your fish and mining operations in SVG.