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LESTER BIRD'S NEW YEAR ADDRESSES

Assessing 2005, Projecting to 2006:

A Year of Failed Promises

by

Lester Bryant Bird

Political Leader of the Antigua Labour Party

Fellow citizens, nationals and friends of Antigua and Barbuda, I take this opportunity to convey my best wishes to you for the New Year.  I pray that God will richly bless us and guide us, and that our collective wisdom will express itself in the choices, which our party and the government will make in the year to come. One year ago, I predicted that 2005 would not be a very joyous year.  I correctly forecast that 2005 would be a year of woe. The forecast was based on my knowledge of the capabilities of the men elected on the United Progressive Party (UPP) ticket in 2004; it was based on the policy choices, which they made after nine months in office, and the pronouncements, which were elicited by the Budget Debate in December 2004.  My forecast then was accurate. I now forecast that 2006 will be a year of failed promises.

The Antigua Labour Party has enormous experience in governing and can foretell the likely results of poor quality decisions.  The UPP regime began 2005 by making many poor decisions and the people of Antigua and Barbuda have suffered the consequences.  2006 will also be a very sad year for many Antiguans and Barbudans especially as a consequence of a burdensome tax policy of the UPP regime.

The Re-Introduction of Personal Income Tax

In the campaign of 2004, the UPP announced its intention to retain the taxes on the books, to be more effective at collection of all taxes, to eliminate extravagance and theft and assured the electorate that a UPP Government would be so adept at managing our affairs that it would be able to afford the costly promises made in its 2004 manifesto, and to do even more.  Yet, a few months after coming to office, the UPP decided to reverse a three-decade old policy of low taxes.

In April, the UPP re-introduced personal income tax, to a maximum rate of 25%; it announced the introduction of the value added tax, to be called the Antigua and Barbuda Sales Tax (ABST); and, it announced its intent to change the basis for computing tax on property in a way guaranteed to yield even more from property owners.  The UPP has done all that it can to take more money from taxpayers than any previous government in Antigua and Barbuda's history. Our country, which for decades was a low-tax jurisdiction, was transformed into a high-tax jurisdiction by design, in a matter of months.  The impact on the working class and middle class in Antigua and Barbuda has been devastating and will worsen in 2006.

When the ALP announced its intention to end personal income tax, back in the 1976 elections, the governing party used to say: "No taxes, what asses."  That slogan captured their assessment.  Upon coming to power, the ALP government abolished personal income tax, allowing workers to decide how they want to spend their income.  The rest is history.  The economy grew each year, economic opportunities mushroomed, immigrants moved in to fill vacant jobs, and unemployment disappeared. As a low tax jurisdiction, Antigua and Barbuda attracted new capital, new enterprises and new economic opportunities.

After two decades of continuous growth, many of our people began to think that economic progress is inevitable, and that governing was easy; Just mere words. The reality is that governments make hundreds of important decisions each day, the collective result of which is often uncertain until time has elapsed.  To govern is to decide; and the consequences of decision-making can be healthy or injurious to the nation. 

The harm to the budgets of struggling families and even to the new middle-class is evident.  A significant portion of personal income has been lost to government by the re-introduction of personal income tax, and the taxpayers must brace themselves for the devastating impact to follow when all the other taxes, lined up to become law, take effect in four months. 

The UPP is disastrous for Antigua and Barbuda's families.  A massive protest march on November 24th, 2005, from Mount St. John's to reverse these actions drew only scornful reactions.  "You can march from Mount Mc Knish, we are pushing ahead," the architect of the new tax policy declared.

The UPP government imposed even worse taxes than I had envisaged, and burdened our community even more.   It is true to say that in 2005 our people had less income than they had before, and the vast majority found it very difficult to make ends meet.

I am afraid that as this horrible year ends, a worse year lies before us.  The UPP government has already indicated that from April people will be taxed even more. They are bringing in the very taxes that they denied they would impose.  There will be less money in everyone's pockets, greater poverty, and increased hard times.

Therefore, as much as I would like, on behalf of the Labour Party, to wish everyone a Happy New Year, I know this would be a pointless hope.  Instead, as I did last year, I wish you a healthy New Year and pray that God will give us all the strength to endure it.

Every democratic country requires a strong opposition party. I knew that when I served as Prime Minister.  That is why the Labour Party gave free rein to the UPP, when it was in opposition - and all others who had a different point of view - the freedom to march, to demonstrate and to speak and write freely.

Sadly, this is not the case today.

The UPP government has stifled criticism, suffocated dissent, and silenced disapproval.

ABS Radio and Television has become the exclusive preserve of the UPP; the employees of the station have been subjugated and abused, and they dare not air an opposing view.

Without a strong opposition party, governing political parties take advantage of people.  They pass repressive laws, they stifle freedom and they drive fear into the hearts of people.

Over the last 21 months, we have seen much of this and more from the UPP government.  People in this country are frightened to complain; they are fearful of victimisation; they are terrified of retribution. 

Many have lost their jobs; all have been burdened with high taxes; each has been the victim of the UPP's broken promises; none has been spared the consequences of the UPP's failure to produce.

Undermining The Justice System

In 2005, the UPP did its best to undermine and to divert justice from its natural course.  In April 2005, it established a special police force to pursue its political enemies.  The UPP also hired a high-priced former Attorney General of Trinidad to spearhead its anti-democratic objective.  Then, at midnight on May 20th, 2005, the UPP decapitated the head of the Royal Antigua Police Force, sending 20 of the most senior officers on forced 90-day vacation.  Under an amended Magistrates Code of Procedure Act, it had unjustly detained without bail, scores of young men in an overcrowded and unsanitary prison.  The UPP has been bent on subverting justice.

In 2006, the Antigua and Barbuda people will see more of the same.  A new Director of Public Prosecution has been appointed, making him the third such person to fill that position in twenty-one months. The Magistracy has been neglected, forcing them to withhold their labour for a ten-day period until the Regime provided suitable quarters. The Judge who granted an injunction in the ZDK matter asked for a transfer, following withdrawal of APUA services at her home.

In 2006, the UPP regime will continue to try to divert justice from its natural course in order to ensure a victory at the polls whenever elections are called.  We must never allow them to succeed. Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom and the Antigua and Barbuda people have shown a willingness to stand guard, to protect the institutions that safeguard our freedoms.

National Assets Need Protection

In 2005, the UPP attempted to sell our Deepwater Port to its campaign financiers.  In the first months following its ascension to power, the UPP sold the Royal Antiguan Hotel for a mere pittance, and then wasted the paltry amount collected on lawyers' fees, settling of a lease, and other unwise choices.  It then began negotiations to give away APUA-PCS for another paltry sum.  It almost sealed an agreement on giving away the VC Bird Airport and its revenues for fifty-five years, and is yet to add even one square foot of new space to a facility that all agree is now inadequate. It has agreed to eliminate the green space in St. John's by building a monstrosity on lands that, from time immemorial, have been left untouched for the recreation and enjoyment of the inhabitants of St. John's.

In 2006, the UPP regime will again attempt to sell off or give away the assets of the people of Antigua and Barbuda.  The Antigua Labour Party will stand firmly with the people of all political persuasions to ensure that our country's assets are not frittered away by a group of men whose failures in their personal lives are being reflected in their policy choices in government. Because they were unable to run successful businesses or to achieve any outstanding feats in their private lives, they are unwilling to manage and to expand the asset holding of the government.  Instead, they dream of alienating our assets, relying upon IMF's prescription of private sector led growth.  The UPP, in 2006, will only leave us poorer and unable to create wealth and economic opportunities for our children and grandchildren if they dispose of our national assets.

The UPP has announced that in 2006 it will distribute 1600 plots of land to would-be homeowners.  We would welcome such a development. However, in the twenty-one months since coming to power, the UPP has stopped completely giving title and transfers to those same would-be homeowners.  Their record speaks more loudly than their words.  Successive ALP governments recognized the essential importance of new housing and construction to the well being of the Antigua and Barbuda people.  Successive ALP governments never foreclosed opportunities for home ownership, as this regime has practised since March 2004, BUT transferred government lands for an affordable amount to aspiring families. The Land for Youth program is one of the cornerstones of this inventive ALP policy, which the UPP has deemed unconstitutional and stopped dead in its tracks.  In 2006, the UPP intends to make additional excuses why it cannot proceed to make housing plots available to Antiguan families.

Cricket World Cup

One challenge which all the world will be able to rely upon to judge this UPP regime is our preparedness for Cricket World Cup 2007.  An expanded airport, additional hotel rooms, a completed cricket stadium, constructed access roads, and a readiness to receive thousands of visitors for eleven days in 2007 require advance planning.  The talent pool on which the UPP is relying is so shallow that it will be found wanting one year from today.  A failed outcome will be a shame on all of us, not just the UPP.  We are therefore willing to offer our expertise and talent in ensuring that Antigua is ready for Cricket World Cup 2007 by achieving all the benchmarks, which we must set and accomplish by the end of this year.

While the 2006 Government Budget and Estimates fail to reflect the borrowings and the financial resources that are required to make us ready, there is still salvage time left within which we can achieve all required objectives. I would urge Prime Minister Spencer to look beyond the big blue tent to the wider arena in which abundant talent, creative men and women anxious to serve country, are to be found.  Let us put our shoulders to the wheel and ensure that Cricket World Cup 2007does not serve to embarrass us in the eyes of the rest of the world.

2006 will be a year of failed promises.  The thousands of jobs, which the Prime Minister says are coming, will not materialize.  The Justice System will be continuously under threat, and the steps necessary to take us forward to Cricket World Cup 2007 will find us lagging.

When the UPP was in opposition it was judged on its words, for its leaders' hands were not on the wheel.  Now that the UPP is the government, it is being judged on performance.  In 2005, the UPP performed poorly and the November 24th protest march from Mount St. John's only confirmed that assessment.  In 2006, failed promises will mark the UPP regime's inabilities.

2006 will also mark twenty-five years of our Independence. For twenty-three of those 25 years, the ALP managed the affairs of our country.  In 1981, on the dawn of Independence, the economy was barely a half billion dollars annually; it exceeds two billion dollars today and personal incomes have more than tripled in that period. The first piece of legislation making Financial Services a reality came into being, shortly after Independence.  The Merchant Shipping Act and the Offshore Insurance Industry also became a reality. Telemarketing and Internet Gaming were also important elements in job creation and economic opportunities under successive ALP governments.  The Antigua State College and the Antigua and Barbuda Institute of Technology were created by the ALP to further learning and to improve chances of individual and collective success.  The Education Levy and the granting of hundreds of scholarships, though opposed by the UPP, were the creation of the ALP during the last decade.  The development of Heritage Quay, including its berthing piers and its many shops, were undertaken by the ALP despite strong opposition from many quarters.  The expansion of VC Bird Airport, the installation of a desalting plant and increased electric generation, are all a part of the record of successive ALP governments in the twenty-five years of Independence.

If there is not a strong opposition party, there will be more fear, more anxiety, less freedom and even less free will.  In this connection, my choice of man of the year for his courage in openly exposing the excesses of the UPP government and for his fearlessness in speaking out despite the threats against him is James "Tanny" Rose.  He has been a true champion of people's rights.  My woman of the year is the President of the Senate, the Honourable Hazelyn Francis.  Ms Francis endured a terrible ordeal last October - a victim of the rising incidence of violent crime. No doubt, the experience has scarred her life, but she has carried out her public duties despite it.  She has shown that even in the face of adversity, it is possible to overcome.  But she, nor any other person in our society, should have to endure the mounting crime we witness today.

Unfortunately, the policies of the UPP government - of laying off workers, of increased taxes - suggest that we will see worse times than have been suffered so far.

It is for all these reasons that we need a strong and united Labour Party.  It is in the country's interest.  The Labour Party has talented and able people capable of taking our country out of the morass into which it has now plunged. My task is to unite it and that I am dedicated to do.  The people in this country will be first, in every policy, in every programme and in everything.

Working together, the Labour Party and its sister organization, the AT&LU, will fight for the rights of the people against those in government who are intent on taking jobs from the people, to create poverty where poverty did not exist; to hurt business instead of nurturing it; to encourage people to crime as the only means of survival; to burden all with taxes and more taxes.

Antigua and Barbuda needs a fit and fighting machine to combat the unrestrained behaviour of those now in government.

My single task now is to protect and preserve the interests of all the people in Antigua and Barbuda, to ensure that this regime of fear, of victimization and of impoverishment does not continue. It is to change the present suffering to rejoicing. To give hopes where there is now despair.  To do this, a strong and unified Labour Party is vitally necessary.

The ALP has been making some decisions in the long-term interest of the party.  The appointment of Senators Lennox Weston and Arthur Nibbs and their performance in the Senate has been interesting, exciting and profound.

I urge all members of the party to cease and desist from airing our differences in the public domain and seek to solve our problems within the institutions of the party.  That has been the tradition of the ALP.   So come the New Year, a revitalized Labour Party will fight to put Antigua and Barbuda back on its rightful road to social progress and economic prosperity. This is my New Year's Resolution. It is the candle of hope that must be lit to dispel the darkness of repression into which the UPP has shrouded us.

Fellow citizens and residents of Antigua and Barbuda, on behalf of the Labour Party, I wish you health and strength in the New Year.