And they, with thunderous applause, cheered death, not realizing it was their own. Rufus Bousquet gave an ominous warning, asking, “How do you form a government with this?” Well, after nearly five years into their administration, the evidence is incontrovertible, we should not have. By virtually every metric, this UWP administration has failed. However, like three-card monte or “trois-kat” hustlers, they utilize shills to propagate and deploy written puff pieces, glossy photographs and renderings to get our gazes away from the objective reality.
Their term is virtually over, and there is need for a clear-eyed accounting of their performance. Having audited their accounts, I will present some of the crucial findings. I will focus on three issues and metrics that were most crucial in their 2016 electoral victory: health, crime and the economy. Given the constraints of space I will focus at this time on their health record.
A fire gutted St Jude Hospital in 2009 and forced services to be delivered at the George Odlum National Stadium. This arrangement was supposed to have been temporary. Donations from locals and friendly governments were collected; a rebuilt hospital was promised to be delivered in less than two years. Of course such a timeline was unrealistic, but it created an expectation that would prove difficult to satisfy. (An issue deserving of separate attention).
With a new party forming the government at the end of 2011, it was expected that they would see the reconstruction through to rapid conclusion. For a host of reasons they were unable to complete the construction during their time in office. During that interregnum, at least four timelines were given for completion, none fulfilled. Leading up to the 2016 elections, the cries for the urgent completion of the hospital grew increasingly louder. As did demands that the stadium be returned to those for whom it was built in the first place.
At the start of 2016, the then opposition chided the administration for not having commissioned the OKEU hospital. The government was criticized for merely naming, not opening, the hospital. They went further, promising to march to the hospital, to demand the operationalization of the dialysis chairs they claimed were stored in a container.
The opposition stoked those flames. Whether or not people understood the real challenges affecting the delivery of services, by the time of the election there was much angst about the state of healthcare. The UWP thus promised to urgently resolve those issues.
Of course, because from inception they were never honest with the public, they have been unable to improve the state of health-care delivery, and have only needlessly set it back. Despite his hysteria and theatrics about dialysis, Allen Chastanet was not able to operationalize the additional chairs until 2018, a full two years after forming the government. Four years later, COVID-19 forced the transitioning of services from Victoria Hospital to the OKEU, and even as I write arrangements for the staffing and management of the entity are yet to be finalized. So much for urgency of action.
The administration has played dangerous politics with the public’s health in their overseeing of the reconstruction of the SJH. With the project having gone beyond the public’s expected completion date, it is understandable that an administration would want to know the reason. Therefore, commissioning of a project audit was not unreasonable, but did not necessitate stoppage for it to be conducted.
Even if fraud or other illegalities was suspected, rationalizing the need to stop the project, because the completed audit made no such conclusions/allegations, it confirms the baselessness and callousness in the decision to stop the project for such an extended duration. The audit made no claims of misfeasance on the part of any government minister, nor does it suggest that monies were misspent.
As if further to compound the insensitivity of the decision and to fire up the emotions of the gullible, Guy Joseph sought to mislead the public by stating that the hospital was being constructed without a plan. If no plans were available, against what basis was the audit being conducted? How would value for money be determined? How would one know the schedule of services on offer, and the patient and operational flow of the hospital?
Allen Chastanet would confirm his own mendacity and his unbridled capacity to mislead the House by offering, during his contribution to the 2018/19 Debate on the Estimates, the following word salad:
“So, we have seen, and through his own admission —I mean I was actually really amazed about his honesty. That the Member for Laborie actually read out the Budget numbers for St Jude going back all that time. That he showed that when they came into government, that the Budget amount was $36 million. And before they left office, it was $136 million. Isn’t that remarkable? That is in his own words. And, what we are now realizing is it that the number of expenditure is close to, if I am not mistaken . . . $180 million? One hundred and seventy-five million, of which when they did the audit, they could not find where that money was spent. So, this is why we are now having to spend money on a consultancy. In order to be able to find out where the source of funds is.”
From the quoted statement, it is evident that Allen Chastanet, as Minister for Finance, does not know the difference between the project cost and project expenditure. The referenced audit was submitted on 9 January 2017, and his statement to the House was on 22 March, 2018. In the very Estimate that he tabled and was debating, the project cost was identified as $137,171,936 and total expenditure on the project was $96,945,211. I guess the public would hear his words and not see the actual numbers in his budget.
In what should be an august chamber, they then enlisted their supporters to serve as shills, wittingly or otherwise, to con the public. Their newly appointed project manager would in 2018 coordinate a misguided tour of the stopped project to their party faithful. No professional body—not the SLMDA or the Association of Engineers or Architects—was invited on this guided tour.
Nearly three years later, the government would find another unwitting shill to continue their con. This time the Prime Minister himself used media personality “Franny” to pull the wool over the public’s eye. He invited her to tour the facilities (the abandoned and new construction) without preconditions. Franny is no builder, contractor or health-care professional, and as such was in no way equipped to ask the pertinent questions about the efficacy of what she was being shown. I don’t know the order of the tour or precisely what she was told on her private tour. However, during an interview with the MP for Castries South, based on statements made about her observations, it is clear that she, like those before, was bamboozled.
She observed that some of the rooms in the stopped project were small and had low ceilings. She also noted the size of corridors and doors in the buildings were narrow. These were some of the same observations parroted by those party supporters who received the initial tours. None of those observers were able to say whether those corridors were supposed to be accessed by and or with patients, or whether they were exclusively for staff access. With regard to the low ceilings, those who took the tour did not tell the public that those ceiling heights were not throughout the buildings, but was only in the basement. That while the ceiling height in the basement was lower than what obtained in the rest of the facilities, no ceiling was below a ninety inches from ground. Neither did they say that not even the Prime Minister would have to duck or lower his head to walk in or through those areas. Further, they could not state that the services scheduled to be located in those areas could not be performed in them because of their size or heights.
Franny, who seemed in awe or at least suitably satisfied with the new construction, claimed that it was much bigger than the abandoned one. However, she was not in a position to comment on the size of any room in that new facility, as there were yet no installed partitions to demarcate rooms. Ducting for air- conditioning or to pipe gases, nor electrical and other wiring and fixtures had yet been installed, and as such she could not determine or compare ceiling heights nor room sizes. Doors had not been installed to get a comparison with those in the stopped facility. Franny was not taken for her knowledge or expertise, but as a patsy in a propaganda war, to con the unsuspecting or uncritical population. Two weeks after Franny’s tour, the official opposition was denied similar accommodation.
Despite themselves having given alternate and now elapsed dates for the commissioning of the new facility, the Government is now trying to avoid giving new dates for the opening. This so they can evade accountability. Notwithstanding, none who have visited the new facility have suggested that it is at a more advanced stage of completion than the abandoned facility. What this therefore means, is that after 58 months of this administration, the commissioning of SJH is no closer than it was on June 6, 2016. This sad state of affairs turned out to be quite deadly, as evidenced by the rate of Covid-19 infections and deaths.
Having flaunted his folly by celebrating the completion of a horse racecourse ahead of the commissioning and completion of OKEU and SJH, the advent of Covid-19 exposed the inadequacy of our health facilities. He grasped at straws, suggesting that Rat Island be used as a quarantine site. The island had fewer testing kits and PPE available to it than other OECS member states.
At first, and primarily because of luck, there were few infections. They chose to celebrate, even boasting their managerial proficiency, broadcasting that they were best in the word at managing the virus. They thumped their chests, and with rhetorical flair proclaimed “How could you argue with success?” And their supporters cheered, ignoring all call for temperance. Today, Saint Lucia is truly number one in the OECS, and not for a positive. Today, with the exception of the French Members, Saint Lucia has more Covid-19 infections and deaths than the rest of the OECS combined. An incontrovertible failure of this administration.
This article first appeared in the May 2021 edition of the STAR Monthly Review. Be sure to get your printed copy on newsstands or view it here: https://issuu.com/starbusinessweek/docs/star_monthly_review_-_may_31_2021
