This week Camillo Gonsalves presented a budget that is has no way of paying, with national debt reaching the same level as St Vincent and the Grenadines’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – the market value of all the final goods and services produced.
The EC$651.8 million budget announced is financed by EC$265.4 million of ‘other receipts’, which means the Gonsalves Government does not know how it will fund a significant portion of its budget.
Vincentians can expect to be hit with additional secret taxes to fill the hole in this budget, much like the Gonsalves Government introduced earlier this year with an increase in the import duty.
At the same time, after twenty years of fiscal mismanagement, the government has found itself in a position where it is finding it increasingly difficult to borrow, as a result of its monumental debt.
During the Estimates Debate on Tuesday, Finance Minister Camillo Gonsalves announced a debt which is worth 98.1% of GDP, making debt almost the size of the country’s economy. As a result of this situation, 42 cents of every dollar raised in revenue goes to paying off debt, rather than public services and economic growth.
St. Kitts and Nevis has recently announced all civil servants will get double salaries before Christmas 2021. Meanwhile, we have people living in extreme poverty with no support from the Gonsalves Government.
The 2018 Poverty Assessment Report is still yet to be published by the Gonsalves Government, in which it is estimated that 36% of Vincentians are living in poverty. These figures will have only increased after an additional three years of economic disaster under the watch of Camillo Gonsalves.
With no way of financing our budget, mounting debt and twenty years of economic mismanagement, it is time to get rid ah dem!