Kenny Anthony was in full school principal mode last week, as he spoke with the host of Lunch Room, the then prime minister’s speechwriter and political attaché. With reference to the current administration, he said: “This is a government that’s arrogant. This is a government that has not made use of the experience, has not made use of the lessons of the past. So it continues what it does very blindly, believing that it has all the answers to all the issues that confront the country. That is not so. Whether you like it or not, there are lessons of the past that you need to be aware of so as not to commit the mistakes.”
The inescapable irony is that of all the pejoratives hurled at Anthony when he was prime minister, “arrogant” topped the list. Asked what he thought was to blame for the June 6, 2016 disaster that befell the St Lucia Labour Party under his leadership, and if it had to do with his hardline position on VAT, this was his response:
“I think it was bigger than that, Calixte. I’m glad you raised this issue. When we got into office in 2011—you would know—the economy of Saint Lucia was in dire straits. We already had a fiscal deficit hovering around 10% of GDP. And we had to take some fairly strong measures. Obviously that was one. Although we did indicate in our manifesto that we would have introduced VAT; but the measures I took on were unheralded to bring down that deficit.”
Then there was the other reason he discovered himself choking on Allen Chastanet’s exhaust as the election results were announced: “Public servants punished me. A lot of them voted against me. The police, of course, voted against me because they were misled on the so-called IMPACS report. But that’s another story. I’ll have my say on that at the right time. But when the issue of sacrifice was raised, with the public servants possibly taking a cut in salary, I think they reacted with great disbelief and annoyance, et cetera. And I think I was punished. Now, they may not have realized it, but when they took the 0-0-0 per cent, this helped to save this country. They made a major contribution in preventing us from going to the IMF.”
As for our former prime minister’s rebranding of the 2013-2016 TUF wage negotiations as “a sacrifice”, consider this statement by a member at last February’s Teacher’s Union meeting at the Cultural Centre: “Before we move forward with this negotiation, I have an issue with the last one [2013-2016 TUF wage negotiations] that I need the executive to address. At that earlier meeting Mr. Monrose hinted that we, the teachers, took a wage freeze. As far as I remember, we never met in this forum to discuss this issue. Let me say that again. As I remember, regarding the wage freeze, we never met in this forum to discuss the issue. The executive took a decision on our behalf. I would like to know if this is the norm. Is it proper not to have consultation? I demand a response from the executive on this matter; whether this is a trend or whether we can expect it to continue, or whether this was an error and you are ready to apologise for what transpired.” [Reporter’s emphasis.]
Clearly, the last thing on the minds of teachers at the recalled meeting was “sacrifice”. Many remember vividly the then prime minister, himself a former teacher, marching in protest with his brethren during Stephenson King’s time as prime minister. They easily recall Kenny Anthony on the front lines, arm in arm with them, demanding that King deliver their wage demands. They certainly recall the change of attitude demonstrated by Kenny Anthony upon returning to office in 2011.
But back to Anthony’s Lunch Room thoughts in relation to the IMF. Referencing his host’s days as his political alter ego, Anthony said: “I believe you are aware that the technicians in the Ministry of Finance had in fact advised me to seek an IMF programme because there were very genuine fears that we may not have been able to pay our debt, especially treasury bills that were rolling over at a very furious rate; and it was a very painful period for me, and for weeks and days I pondered over the advice I got from the Ministry of Finance and decided I wasn’t going to go down in history as the prime minister that would take Saint Lucia to the IMF.” He delivered all of that in one breath.
Abruptly, he shifted gears. “I believe we’re approaching the figure of over two billion dollars now. When you add, of course, the borrowing for the airport and the new borrowing for the road, I mean, this is really a remarkable achievement by the prime minister to have borrowed so much money in so little time.” But by Kenny Anthony’s own telling, during his last stint as prime minister, Saint Lucia was in even more fiscal doo-doo than it is today.
“So the fact of the matter is that the measures that we took between 2011 and 2016 saved this economy,” he told the Lunch Room host, “ensured that we didn’t go to the IMF and I was punished, I think, for these measures. So it’s not just a question of the introduction of VAT…but really you are looking at a complexity of factors, a compendium of factors. It was VAT, it was the sacrifice that public servants and police officers had to make. Then, of course, the IMPACS report that was so widely misunderstood. And I believe there’s an untold story behind that, but today is not the day for that.”
Kenny Anthony summed it all up this way: “Suffice it to say though that despite the pain of the defeat, the pain of the loss—and every electoral loss has its pain—but in my heart I am comforted by the fact that I was able to turn this economy around. I was able to reduce the fiscal deficit of this country. I was able to restore the reputation of the country in the market place, that we laid the basis for the revival of that economy and I am comforted too, that in my tenure I did not have to take Saint Lucia to the IMF and travel that road.”
