In 1995 Pat Brown, arguably Saint Lucia’s most revered structural engineer and a cherished contributor to the STAR newspaper, wrote the next: In 1972 the day’s prime minister was obsessive about the concept of creating Rodney Bay a no-go zone for mosquitoes. Moses Matalon [a Jamaican famous for having conceptualized the reclamation of land in the foreshore area of Kingston, as well as ‘a visionary in finding solutions to the housing and construction industry’] was initially introduced in to open a channel emanating from the ocean to the swamp. His contract was prolonged to bridge Pigeon Island with a causeway. The consequence was a extreme ecological catastrophe that value Saint Lucia a number of seashores and the disappearance of our beloved jack fish. Matalon subsequently launched asphalt roads from Cap Property to Castries. Inside months, at least seven motorists misplaced their lives dashing on the poorly designed highway.
There was no super-elevation, no tangential curves. Present-off motorists quickly found they might not negotiate the curves at pace and paid with their lives. Visitors lanes had been restricted to 22 ft as an alternative of the mandated 24. The highway was constructed with out shoulders. Subsequent software of a sheet asphalt floor raised the highway pavement to shut to eight inches above the earth shoulders, inflicting extra highway accidents, some deadly. Right now, 22-feet lanes now not fulfill the movement of site visitors and to date has value taxpayers $3 million to assemble highway shoulders and widen site visitors lanes from Cap to the La Clery church, a bit over 7 miles. To undertake an analogous operation on the five-and-a-half miles from Choc to Cap will value a million {dollars}, a number of instances the unique value of the highway 22 years in the past.
The STAR’s hypothesis that the federal government could announce a snap election appears to have taken many without warning. Whereas it’s true our delicate political surroundings has been maintained by the reluctance (lack of ability?) of the elected opposition to benefit from risky points occurring at an ever-increasing fee, it’s troublesome to simply accept that an election machine encumbered by psychological fatigue, that has nonetheless been in a position to cogwheel some Saint Lucians into electing the ruling social gathering six consecutive instances with beautiful effectivity, will proceed to take action indefinitely. For a way for much longer can voters fall for affordable rum, stale rotis and fried hen? What number of extra instances will the drunk and disorderly, hypnotized by resembling Shabba Ranks and different imports, permit themselves to be transported to polling stations to vote for candidates they know not, not to mention what they’re able to. One would hope {that a} new era will quickly reject clear election gimmicks and demand from our political events election candidates at the very least in a position to suppose and browse!
Dare we hope to see any time quickly, election candidates extra concerned with easing the plight of the folks than in touchdown ministerial portfolios about which they know nothing? Dare we hope the university-educated offspring of barely literate however profitable banana farmers will probably be much less tolerant of the insults their dad and mom suffered of their finest pursuits by the hands of venal, aloof and pompous politicians? Will we proceed to accommodate political piracy, with as soon as formidable opposition forces kissing for private achieve the ft of these they as soon as described because the satan incarnate?
Will we proceed to tolerate authorities and statutory our bodies that seem above the legislation? Authorities ministers who with impunity dismissively react to essential press questions? Probably the most disturbing allegations go uninvestigated. Ministers brazenly interact in private-sector companies, making life tougher for normal native entrepreneurs. The media, except these blatantly over-supportive of the federal government, exists below siege. Some retailers have been pressured to close down. A dictatorship looms.
Within the meantime, we glance on helplessly, passive spectators to a nationwide calamity. However there may be hope. And it resides within the new era. I can’t allow myself to imagine educated, younger and wholesome Saint Lucian women and men will accept what their predecessors have for years suffered in silence for worry of victimization. I imagine strongly a change is coming.
Editor’s Notice: A yr after the previous article appeared within the STAR, a thirtyish Kenny Anthony returned residence to take over the St. Lucia Labour Celebration, Julian Hunte having resigned in a huff as chief a short while earlier. For a number of years Anthony had been away from the native political scene whereas he studied on the College of the West Indies, and the College of Birmingham. Not lengthy after commencement, regional governments fell over one another within the race to revenue from his broadly acclaimed acuity. George Odlum, himself a famend product of upper training in England, declared him “lead amongst our greatest brains.” On 23 Might 1997, it was Saint Lucia’s flip to reclaim its prized product. They handed Kenny Anthony an unprecedented election victory: 16 of the 17 seats in parliament. Lastly, a vivid, charismatic, articulate and photogenic youthful native son had been positioned on the helm of the nation’s Ship of State. Pat Brown’s dream come true. At this level, I’m reminded of the next from Aesop’s Fables: “Watch out what you want for, lest it come true.” I’m additionally questioning what Pat Brown would possibly’ve written about life right now on this Rock of Sages.
