Please pardon me everyone! I am still in shock after listening to our Prime Minister over and over again as he debated his Stimulus Package before the House of Representatives on Friday, April, 17, 2020. My conclusion is: “this man really believes that he is a magician, like Mandrake”.
We have seen the great magicians before our very eyes seem to turn a coin into a bird. In our village we nicknamed a man from his youth as, “hen”, because a magician caused him to stoop over a seemingly empty basket and when he got up, we saw an egg in the basket. He did not lay an egg, the key to the magician’s success is in misdirection.
Our Prime Minister was at Grenlec again and the only reason why he found himself in that position is because he chose to include something in his Stimulus Package about reducing the nation’s Grenlec bill by 30% for a 3-month period.
As I have said before, this element of the Stimulus Package is very empty and grossly unfair as it will give more benefit to the person with the larger bill. The poor man in Queen’s Park will save $20 on his $60 bill while Mr. Steele will save $400 on his $1,200 bill. What a disparity! So once again poor people are being further marginalised.
Our Prime Minister continues to “ring the Grenlec bell” and continues to attack Grenlec (WRB) on all fronts. If he had asked for my advice it would have been in 3 words, “don’t go there”! But he says that it’s not about WRB at all.
Our Prime Minister is, after almost 26 years, still using his successful 1995 campaign strategy of blaming the NDC for the Grenlec sale conditions. He still says that NDC literally gave away Grenlec to WRB and NDC gifted them a monopoly with unfair conditions against the people of Grenada.
While saying all of this, he took time off to identify the NDC as “the main opposition political party” in Grenada. Well, well, well; isn’t this pure politics? But in the same breath our Prime Minister is saying that all of Grenada must abstain from politics in this time of crisis. So, his comments about the NDC is not politics.
A simple “rule of thumb” is as follows: IF THERE IS NO TRUTH, LOGIC OR REAL MERIT IN THE REASONS OR ARGUMENTS PUT FORWARD BY SOMEONE, THEN IT IS SIMPLY A MISDIRECTION, INTENDED TO LEAD YOU TO THE WRONG CONCLUSION.
Since the Prime Minister has chosen to go there then I am constrained to stay there and answer him from right there. He has invited us to go back to 1994 so I say that we should not stop there but we must look at the relevant context. Now let us look at what our Prime Minister is not telling you.
Just before 1994 Grenlec was a part of the Ministry of Works, Keith Mitchell was the Minister of Works and Gregory Bowen was the Manager of Grenlec. The very same two persons literally ran Grenlec into the ground. The order of the day at Grenlec was political patronage, square pegs in round holes, bad investments, over staffing, faulty equipment and most of all, very regular blackouts.
Remember the electricity hardship visited upon us by the very same Keith and Gregory!
Let us not forget how our children had to do homework in darkness and the spoilage of our meat in the fridge and of our electronic appliances. Keith and Gregory escaped out of the ensuing inquiry “by the skin of their teeth”. So, the weak bargaining position of the government of Grenada in the subsequent Grenlec sales negotiations was caused by the same Keith and Gregory. They are the very last persons who should be even talking about electricity and Grenlec at all.
Right now, it is fair to say that, contrary to the assertion by our Prime Minister, the reliability of the electricity supply has been maybe the most significant factor contributing to the decisions of foreign investors to invest in Grenada.
Reliability is always more significant than cost, especially to the businessman, because cost simply goes to profit while reliability of electricity goes to the ability to deliver high quality goods and services in a predictable manner.
Let us now have a look at our Prime Minister’s argument.
It is about the burden of the Grenlec bill
- Please look at your Grenlec bill, Grenada!
- You pay based on the number of units consumed and read on your meter.
- The units attract 2 charges with 2 separate rates, which are fuel and non-fuel.
- The fuel charges are determined by the fuel supplier and contains the cost of fuel and government taxes, so Grenlec does not determine the fuel rates or charges.
- The non-fuel charges is further taxed by the government with a VAT and an environmental levy.
Some governments in the Caribbean subsidise the fuel cost which goes to their electricity companies but our government maintains its taxation on the fuel which companies like Sol deliver to Grenlec.
In addition, our government adds two extra expenses to our Grenlec bill which has nothing to do with electricity:
(1) a further 15% VAT on the non-fuel part of the bill;
(2). an environmental levy to be paid to the Grenada Solid Waste Corporation!
In fact, when you examine your Grenlec bill closely you will find that more than half of the Grenlec bill comprises payment to the government and the fuel supplier.
How can our Prime Minister now complain about the Grenlec bill being a burden to Grenadians when he knows that he has deliberately added to that burden by his own taxation initiatives and has refused to give any subsidy as is done in other OECS and Caribbean countries?
- The 30% offer
Our Prime Minister, by his 30% offer, has clearly exposed himself and the real truth behind the Grenlec bill. It clearly means that the Grenada Government collects at least 30% from every Grenlec bill that is settled by Grenadians. I will tell you about the significance of the 3 months offer later on in this article.
So, we say, “thank you, Mr. Prime Minister, but you are very unfairly putting more of our money into the hands of your rich friends in Grenada”. The real estate investments, in which the Prime Minister and his friends have interest, will now save thousands from their bill of a few thousand dollars a month. That loss of income will fall back on the backs of the ordinary Grenadian citizen because the shortfall will have to be raised later by us all.
It is then fair to say that the burden of the Grenlec bill was brought upon us by Keith and Gregory and made worse by our Prime Minister by the taxation policies of his NNP administration.
What an attempt at misdirection, Mandrake!
- It is about self-respect
Quite honestly, I couldn’t see that point coming at all. It dropped on me like lightning out of a blue sky.
i. The historical timing
Our Prime Minister has already had his “bite of the cherry” over and over again. He won the elections in 1995 on the very same claim and promised to do something about it if he is voted into office.
Yes, he has done several things, like waiting until 2016, when the company had grown many times over, to implement a repurchase event and cost our treasury over EC$200 million. Stop it Mr. Prime Minister! The pricing regulation that you now complain “robs us of self-respect” has been there since 1994.
Yes, our Prime Minister has increased the burden on all of us by implementing tax measures against Grenlec that made electricity much more expensive. Yes, he has refused to partner with Grenlec to produce more renewable energy like solar energy. Yes, he has unrelentingly attacked the major shareholders of Grenlec, calling them wicked, unconscionable and unfair. He repeated the accusation of unfairness, through his surrogate Gregory Bowen, before the international arbitration tribunal and they were literally chased out of the arbitration.
Where is the self-respect of our Prime Minister, who has attacked the main shareholders of Grenlec at every opportunity over the last 25 years and now he comes before us and says that they have done nothing wrong, he does not blame them, and if he were in their shoes he would have done the same thing? Is our Prime Minister really serious about that comment? So, why was our Prime Minister verbally abusing them for all these years?
But, if he is to be believed, it means that either our Prime Minister has endured this disrespect for almost 26 years and, as the highest public officer and most powerful person in Grenada, done nothing about it but talk. Or is it that he has only recently grown and developed or manufactured this self-respect?
ii.The current timing
Frankly I was appalled by our Prime Minister’s choice of occasion. At a time when he is asking for national unity and cooperation, when he is asking to put aside political differences, when he is saying no to politicking, when even the CEO of the WHO is asking countries to forget political differences and to unite to beat this virus, our Prime Minister chooses this occasion when Parliament is opened after several months specially to deal with the virus, to play this political game! Our Prime Minister cannot talk about self-respect when he of himself is exhibiting no self-respect!
iii. The environmental issue
Our Prime Minister continues to pretend that his government is so very much concerned about the environment with all the talk about green and blue growth. We cannot even use biodegradable plastic bags in Grenada and we have gone back to collecting even fish in paper or cloth bags. Our Prime Minister says that recycling of plastics is too expensive a venture for Grenada.
So, will the Prime Minister tell us why his administration has refused to partner with Grenlec in its Solar Farm project that will reduce our dependency on oil for electricity generation? The reason seems to be that our Prime Minister is depending on our economy “booming” with oil discovery.
Well, all the “booming” talk has fallen into a deafening silence now. Maybe one of the reasons is that the price of a barrel of oil is close to that of a bottle of coke now. The Head of the United Nations is now officially attacking the United States’ policy of withdrawal from the Paris Climate Change protocol and its continuing subsidy for oil companies.
Our Prime Minister is running after oil to the detriment of the same environment that he is saying that we need to protect in Grenada and ignoring our farming and fishing.
I wonder if our Prime Minister has a proper grasp of the real and full meaning of the word self-respect. For people who really understand, it is clear that our Prime Minister’s attack on Grenlec is nothing about self-respect.
What an attempt at misdirection, Mandrake!
- What about the 3 months
All this talk about trying to protect lives is in fact just empty talk from an administration with a grossly unprepared and underfunded health system and in a state of panic. This fight with Ralph Gonsalves was needed, since the calm Vincentian approach has shown up the emphasis that St. Vincent has placed on agriculture and self-sustained food production versus the pursuit of fleeting passport riches by Grenada.
Well what is the problem that our Prime Minister has with the import of agriculture products from St. Vincent when even our own Marketing Board has been importing agricultural products from St. Vincent for many years now? Why make a big thing about collecting some food from a neighbour who is accustomed to bringing food for us?
Was it not possible to work out a “structure” as called for by the Vincentian Prime Minister for food to cross a mile or two of water when “structures” are in place for food to come in from the USA and other countries, crossing thousands of miles? Which process is more likely to expose our people to infection by the virus, a ship with unknown persons traversing several ports or a small boat with some agricultural products from our closest neighbours? This is another misdirection!
It was never about sovereignty, never about breaking laws, never about protecting lives. It was all about protecting failed economic policies that have been exposed in a crisis situation. Remember that, true to form, agriculture and fishing have been identified as non-essential services by our most backward administration led by Prime Minister the Right Honourable Dr. Keith Claudius Mitchell.
Compare this with the stances adopted by the governments in Dominica, St. Vincent and St. Lucia. Our Prime Minister, just like Trump, has been thinking that this thing will only be for about 3 months. That is why he said no farming and fishing at all. Rather than take time and identify and isolate the precise problem our Prime Minister’s method is to burn down the entire barn to kill the mongoose that ran into it.
His approach is simply that they will not spend money to test enough people, so lock up everybody. So, let me see how we will get out of this problem now. I predict that we will still have to do a massive testing job and an even more expensive one than if we had started with an expansive testing plan up front. Remember, a stitch in time saves nine.
Imagine that our Prime Minister originally had only 17 or 18 tests kits in the country, one for every member of Cabinet and the Governor General.
Further evidence of that 3-month plan is shown up in the current availability of international flights. Grenada is showing up as a destination for international carriers in May! The Tourism Minister has tried to avoid the question and is hiding behind this talk about being responsible and saving and protecting lives.
It is most interesting that the press release from her office did not say what she told the airlines when they contacted her. So maybe you can figure out what she would have told them that made them include Grenada, but hardly any or no other Caribbean islands, as a destination during the month of May.
The magic tricks will not work, Mandrake! I recommend that our Prime Minister should read the story of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. He just might learn a thing or two from it. Mandrake and Co. are not skilled enough at those tricks to convince anyone!
Cajeton Hood served as Attorney-General in the 2013-18 New National Party administration of Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell.