By Lloyd Noel
We have now gone past the two years date — since that clean-sweep victory at the polls in February 2013 — and from all appearances and the administrative silence from the corridors of powers, nothing of any concrete substance seem to be taking place in any area.
The party in complete control seems to be keeping everything very close to themselves — and thus far, with no opposition in the corridors of power to question the silence, no information is being advanced by the Controllers.
Even members of the party in control — are quietly making comments and voicing their concerns about the silence.
But whatever maybe in the pipeline — concerning the people’s business, or in the interest of the people thus far, only those in control hove such knowledge.
And a whole lot of the needy are quietly asking questions and also voicing their concerns — as the situation seems to be getting harder and more difficult to cope with on a daily basis.
We are hearing the news releases about debt forgiveness — and concessions of one kind or another by friendly government across the globe, but thus far the benefits are not coming down to the unemployed and needy families in the Tri-Island State.
And now we have gone past two years since that clean-sweep victory at the national polls — and here again, none of the grand promises that won the Controllers the unopposed control of the nation’s affairs, seem to be anywhere in sight on the political horizon.
As for the referendum that was once schedule to take place in March next month — to bring about some major changes to our Constitution, and our relationship with certain foreign countries in the Far East — that too seems to have taken a back seat in the scheme of things nationally, so that nothing is being said or done about the matter in recent times.
Some outstanding debts owed to certain countries in the far East — are being reduced or forgiven by a few of those leaders in recent times — but how those will help the unemployment situation any time soon no one is saying thus far.
The Controllers are not coming forward with any idea for jobs production — but they are hoping or expecting the ordinary Grenadian to start buildings on their private lands.
What such buildings will be constructed for only those in control can answer that — but as to where the funds will be coming from to finance such buildings, goodness knows.
I would have thought that the better idea for utilizing those empty lands, should be for cultivating most of them with short term crops for the local market, and even neighboring Islands like the good old Trinidad and Tobago where we have always been major suppliers.
Most of our Agricultural lands are nowadays lying idle, and if funds can be made available for the owners to start up some cultivation and thereby provide some jobs — we will sooner than later see some positive movements in the Economy islandswide.
There are hundreds of acres of fertile lands lying idle all around the Islands — and the majority of our unemployed people have been used to working lands, in one form or another to earn a living — other than our recent school leavers; and putting back those unemployeds in jobs on the lands, can make a whole lot of difference to the economy and their standards of living as the months go by.
And the markets for our agricultural products are right next door in T&T — so that we do not have to worry about where we selling them and in the same places the goods and services we need are available.
It leaves our people to wonder therefore, why the emphasis on foreign investors to come in and use our people’s labour – and take the profits back outside at the end of the day.
Quite naturally, if both the above situations can be accomplished by the Controllers then that would be to our people’s advantage, so that those who do not own lands can find employment from the investors — as well as those who have other skills and training abilities.
So the waiting by those most in need continues, as well as those coming out of the schools and other training facilities who are in dire need of jobs to survive.
Quite naturally those in waiting cannot wait forever — so action must be taken by those in power to speed up the process of provision.
We have now gone past two years since the total control of the Nation’s affairs have been achieved by the party in power, and instead of improvement the jobless situation has gotten worse; so action must be taken by the Controllers to bring about some solutions in the near future — and time is of the essence.
