Within the identify of we the individuals, way back to the late 70s when John Compton was monarch of all he surveyed, I needed to small avail demanded “transparency and accountability” in all issues associated to governance. I took the cri de guerre with me in 1997 once I brazenly campaigned with Kenny Anthony’s Saint Lucia Labour Get together for the elimination of Compton’s surrogate prime minister Vaughan Lewis. I continued to demand as an SLP senator public transparency and accountability following the SLP’s unprecedented 16-1 election victory—and for that was given the boot, together with two different senators who had dared to echo my calls for in relation to the unforgettable Helen Air debacle.
In fact, the star strategists knew a useful gizmo once they noticed one. Shouting from the town’s market steps about transparency and accountability each time handy left the impression the SLP administration really believed within the idea. Alas actions have a manner of exposing false impressions. It wasn’t lengthy earlier than the occasion chief and prime minister was threatening to enact laws that focused the press (Part 361) and describing reporters as media “terrorists.” He went as far as to recommend whistle-blower public servants ought to serve jail time.
Oh how occasions have modified. Within the age of Donald Trump there may be Twitter, Whatsapp, Snapchat, Fb—social media!—all with their very own peculiar grammar, new spelling for previous phrases, handy definitions and interpretations and a shared unconscionable disregard for the results of pretend information.
Regardless of it continues to prevail, Reality’s chameleonic illegitimate half brother Phake Nooze has been given new cachet by a minimum of H.L. Mencken’s nightmare, the present President of america along with his Halloween-masked insistence that no matter is spoken or written of him which doesn’t additional burnish his bronzed picture can not probably be true—due to this fact have to be exaggeration, unreliable: false. No shock that Allen Chastanet’s long-time detractors, many over-ambitious former campaigners for transparency and accountability, have taken everlasting residence within the shadow of Trump.
Simply final week, by no means thoughts TV viewers world-wide had seen with their very own eyes our nation’s prime minister ship with out interruption his acknowledged effective speech earlier than the U.N. Basic Meeting, the phrase based on Fb was that Allen Chastanet had taken unwell quickly after he stepped on the UNGA podium and needed to be medicated earlier than his medical doctors permitted him to ship his tackle in its entirety.
It doesn’t assist that some authorities officers, new to the sport, unwittingly place themselves like sacrificial lambs on the disposal of their worst detractors. Amidst a lot miserable, usually senseless gibberish in regards to the standing of a constructing meant to interchange the burned-out unique St Jude Hospital in Vieux Fort, the well being minister Mary Isaac declared to the media final week that her authorities was contemplating whether or not its most suitable choice within the circumstances was to “demolish” the 75 p.c accomplished constructing. (I say, 75 p.c however way more discouraging figures have been offered!) No shock that the D-word had barely tumbled out of the well being minister’s mouth than it was picked up by the largely delinquent media and given such spins as would render dizzier than typical even the forty fifth POTUS.
It made no sense {that a} construction that had been within the making since 2009 and inexplicably wolfed up an estimated $118 million would intentionally be lowered to rubble with out good trigger. However then, who can clarify the considering of rejected politicians determined to be elected to workplace? Who can say for sure what makes their ticks tick? Three or 4 days following the well being minister’s by any measure discombobulating pronouncement the singular Southeast Castries MP, Mr. Man Joseph, offered himself to a baying pack of media wolves on the authorities’s typical Monday morning pre-Cupboard meals fest.
Judging by their Fb-inspired inquiries to the MP it appeared the collective curiosity had much less to do with the unaccounted for tens of millions than with the well being minister’s use of the phrase “demolish.” As I say, even the good Johnnie Cochran throughout his illustrious profession had turned down billions somewhat than settle for a shopper with an unwinnable case. Maybe on the event Man Joseph underestimated the Brutus daggers in his viewers. Or he positioned loyalty to a colleague above all different issues. No matter his mindset, at Monday’s press briefing Man Joseph for as soon as appeared susceptible. Suffice it to say the consultant for Southeast Castries, well-known as he has grow to be for maneuvering himself out of the tightest corners contained in the Home and out, adept as he has proved at defining for his Home opponents their explicit roles, on Monday appeared caught between the customarily cited satan and the deep blue sea when grilled in regards to the instant way forward for the construction meant to Home St Jude Hospital—particularly in regards to the well being minister’s “demolition” discover.
He claimed he had not along with his personal ears heard the troublesome assertion attributed to his colleague however “demolishing right here doesn’t imply your entire construction. There are specific elements of the hospital that have to be redone.” Whereas he couldn’t furnish his questioners with particulars, he proffered that the federal government had been expertly suggested it could be higher off constructing one thing new as an alternative of making an attempt to salvage the current construction. “It has been really useful that to get St Jude practical,” he stated, “the entire backside flooring have to be condemned!”
It seems the media could have misconstrued the phrases of well being minister Isaac when she stated: “From the place I stand I imagine the advice to demolish the hospital and begin over once more actually must be thought of significantly . . . We could not have a selection within the matter.” Hardly a decided plan of action!
On Wednesday the federal government invited the press to hitch a group of specialists (story elsewhere on this concern; see additionally web page 4) on a tour of the construction on the heart of the most recent hospital controversy. A lot of what reporters noticed coincides with a November 2016 report by the United Nations Workplace for Mission Providers—UNOPS—(an operational arm of the United Nations, devoted to implementing tasks for the United Nations System, worldwide monetary establishments, governments and different companions within the support world) on the St Jude scenario:
“The scenario of the St Jude Hospital Reconstruction Mission is vital. Works have been stopped since July 2016 and a technical audit has been commissioned, geared toward figuring out what has been finalized and what must be accomplished. Throughout the conferences and visits UNOPS has had it was highlighted that the SJHRP can’t be accomplished in accordance with the current design and an in-depth evaluation and re-planning of its goal needs to be accomplished earlier than resuming works.”
UNOPS cited “a number of severe points” within the design and building of the brand new facility. They included wards with out pure gentle, affected person and employees move in addition to lighting issues within the out-patient clinic, the peak of the sterilization unit’s ceiling and “the complexity of the roof of the east wing which may trigger leaks and upkeep points.”
The designs have been “usually not affected person pleasant, will trigger performance points and problems, and can enhance unnecessarily the operating prices—each for upkeep and operation—of the power. As for the development itself, the technical audit will decide all the problems to be addressed which are ultimately current.”
There are additionally issues with the warranties of apparatus already bought. The situation of the gear had not been decided. UNOPS prompt that benefit be taken of the work stoppage to reevaluate fully the undertaking when it comes to infrastructure, group, medical gear and furnishings and most of all in technique and goals.
“One of many points UNOPS has noticed is the dearth of integration of this facility inside the well being care community of Saint Lucia. Certainly some excessive stage companies proposed in St Jude Hospital would possibly produce a duplication of prices with respect to the identical companies supplied by the Owen King EU Hospital.”
UNOPS decided: “The third and most crucial section can be the redesign of the hospital, bearing in mind the inhabitants wants summarized in a brand new design temporary and the present constraints to outline an total technique specializing in the following 5 years and inside this technique outline an ‘optimum resolution’ to organize a ‘minimal infrastructure’ to maneuver rapidly the present actions from the stadium website to the brand new website. The method of redesign shall certainly be centered in a worldwide resolution for the hospital to be carried out in phases the place the primary section implies the switch of a lot of the current hospital’s actions to the brand new website in a scenario (of house, beds and luxury) equal or higher than the current one, and the following phases would intention to finish an optimum facility for the years to return.”
It must be famous that UNOPS anticipated by this time an operational Owen King EU Hospital—as I write, extra wishful considering. Certainly, the power, maybe not surprisingly, suffers quite a lot of of the issues related to that in Vieux Fort. Wednesday’s guests have been advised by on-site specialists that it’s going to absorb extra of $100 million to revive the comatose St Jude Hospital. Alas, essentially the most vocal of the federal government’s detracted want to not focus on how we got here to this sorry place, particularly when Prime Minister Kenny Anthony had greater than as soon as personally expressed full satisfaction with all that had gone on since he assumed duty for St Jude in 2011.
Critical accountability questions stay to be answered, amongst them what precisely had given the prime minister in his time such trigger for pleasure—so many demonstrations of, because it seems, irrational exuberance. Throughout a half-hearted interview he advised one among his favourite reporters he couldn’t be held accountable if in actual fact the undertaking supervisor and the advisor had been lower than excellent of their respective roles on the St Jude undertaking. In spite of everything, he had “inherited” them upon returning to workplace in 2011. They have been employed by his predecessors. By which he appeared to say the Stephenson King administration is guilty for the present scenario. After which there may be that whisper about $88 million nonetheless to be satisfactorily accounted for!
This text was first revealed in September of 2017 below a distinct title. September ninth 2024, marks 15 years since St. Jude Hospital went up in flames. Reconstruction, which has now been promised by 4 consecutive governments who’ve collectively spent over $300 million, appears no the place close to completion.
