"State of Emergency will not help because government’s priorities are still wrong," Opposition Leader

St Lucia: "Why these attacks by the government over the choice of Minister of Commerce whereas the whole country is suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic. They attack personally; they attack the leader of the opposition. Whereas the entire nation is enduring a health crisis, police officers, doctors, nurses, drivers are worried that they or their colleagues might get infected by the virus."

Leader of Opposition Philip Pierre at the national parliament said: “We’re in a position of lack of trust whether people are asking why a state of emergency for 90 days. This all is happening because they (People) do not trust the government and did not believe that the government will stick to its words.”

He accused the administration of a failed government by referring to 19 people who died due to COVID-19, a social murder; the Opposition leader castigated the prime minister saying that the government is wasting its time to attack other personalities. “What you hear from the government is an attack on the opposition. What you will not hear is the call for us to understand that we’re in crisis or going into a state of emergency because there are nearly 2,000 of our fellow citizens who have been tested positive for COVID-19. And there are 20% people coming positive in every batch of testing,” he asserted.

He said that the state of emergency for 90 days will not help because the government’s priorities are still wrong. The government is spending 20 million dollars on two and a half miles of road at Rodney, that too without tender “this is a priority.”

He asked what is the need for a road by spending $20 million when in the time of COVID-19. Many, including small businesses, are in trouble; children are suffering because they don’t have enough laptops as the government had stopped the laptop program. Only to kill the legacy of the Labour Party, the government stopped the project.

“If the government had continued the laptop programme during the state of emergency, our students would have been able to learn virtually.”

He accused that the government is using its powers for political gains and stated that the United Workers Party's political people are distributing the tablets to the people to gain political advantage. Instead of public officers, why political personalities are distributing tablets, who lost the elections previously.

He said that no matter how and on what Prime Minister attacks against him, “People will judge me and they have judged me, and I am proud of what they said. My faith in politics depends on the people.”

Unless the government takes responsibility for the mismanagements and pre-boasting the success, any state of emergency would not work for the country. “They need to understand that what people care, instead they attack me, they do not open the facilities for the people to curb the menace of COVID-19 virus but only attack the opposition.”

Other countries in the Caribbean were strengthening their protocols; they were looking for ways that how they could improve and “Small countries like the neighboring St Kitts and Nevis, Dominica and Grenada are the real models of how to control COVID-19 because they did not try to score cheap political points, but they measured the situation.”

St Lucia has only minimal beds and ten ventilators for the people, which are also packed in the boxes.

Referring COVID-19 vaccination, Philip Pierre said that neighboring countries, Dominica and Barbados, are getting the vaccines from India. What is St Lucia doing? Imposing the State of Emergency so that people go spineless. “The government must introduce a $120 million economic sustainability programme in the next year for the people, not hide it on the construction of roads.