Dear Editor,
Rawdon Turner is the new Member of Parliament for St. Peter following a by- election.
A news article about his win stated “infrastructure” as one of the pillars of his campaign. Knowing that this means basic roadworks has led me to think that we truly aren’t getting ahead as a nation as we are still grappling with rudimentary infrastructural issues.
In many parts of the world, they have gone on to include affordable and reliable internet connectivity as a part of their infrastructure.
Other nations have their electrical system underground to withstand great natural or man- made disturbances. Other countries are so advanced that during elections, they argue about ideologies.
They’ve long passed the topic of infrastructure.
But here in “paradise”, infrastructure means having a road where you can safely keep your side… an elusive desire for many as keeping on one side of the road may mean damaging your vehicle or ending up in a deep ditch that you’d need assistance to get out of.
In 2025, there are many roads to be repaired, but at the same time, there are many areas that have been inhabited for decades that have “roads” that have never been graced by asphalt.
Running water is not a conversation that is used as a political talking point in many countries, but in Antigua & Barbuda, a nation with the hope of being an “economic powerhouse”, it still is.
Fingers are wagged at those too poor to bolster their water storage.
I mean, can they just stop being poor and buy a tank, a cistern and a pump already? Oh and a generator because even outside of storm season, we get those power disruption notices from the APUA one too many times.
I wonder how the elderly poor, pregnant women, sick and injured live with any decency when they are burdened with catching and towing water.
What of the small business owners? The small hairdressers who can’t yet afford to have a proper backup water system as they seek to serve their clients?
I wonder how many productive hours we lose as a nation when people are late for work and appointments because “water on” so they delay leaving home for a rare opportunity to catch water and wash the sweat of a hard day’s work out of their clothes. An economic powerhouse must be built on efficiency.
There’s nothing efficient about catching up water.
The electricity in Antigua & Barbuda is also too fickle even when the country is not under threat of a storm.
We have been fortunate enough to not have to deal with the direct impact of storms in recent years but our electrical system would suggest that we’ve been severely impacted, slowing our recovery time and spurring unnecessary wastage.
We can speak ad nauseum about major developments and billion dollar budgets but where exactly is the money going?
Many of us have sat down and done a review of our lives at times when we’ve made more money but haven’t seen anything from it.
For a moment, we may have said to ourselves, the cost of living has increased and we’ve had emergencies that have cut our funds but we should still be in a better position than we are in now.
After doing this assessment, we hang our heads in shame for our mismanagement. We should also be ashamed as a country.
If we are seeing economic growth, among the fastest in the region, and we still cannot arrest the water problem, we ought to be ashamed.
We can boast of having more university graduates and so- called educated people in high places but if our circumstances aren’t changing, what’s the point? How do we measure the impact of our growing gross domestic product amid crumbling infrastructure?
While the rest of the world is discussing sustainable consumption and LGBTQI rights, we are still looking out for a call from our neighbour saying, “Water’s running!”
We grab our bottles to hurry to catch up water, praying the water won’t be brown.
Antigua & Barbuda: Forever a Third World Nation
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We are an Exotic Nation not a Third World nation. We simply do the striptease acts on the world stage in front of billionaires and millionaires as they bid on the best stock to build their modern day plantations called HOTEL.