DEAR EDITOR:
With the Government scratching for money and emptying the pockets of all of the Statutory bodies including APUA, Airport & Port, all who do not support the ignorance going on are being victimized.
Government has normalized not answering correspondence, not answering telephone calls, employing persons who block all queries and persons who question the integrity of the operations of government and their corrupt officers.
V.C. Bird used to say, ‘where you tie, you eat’ which is now the mantra of all those who have power of the government purse, sale of Antigua’s lands, and convertible assets. The same people doing favours for each other, monetizing every aspect of government operations.
The island is being buried in overgrowth, while all the heavy duty equipment owned by high ranking officials sit waiting to be paid, refusing to put their equipment to work for government.
The entire system is rigged for rip-off. Housing has supplied many house supplies bound for the site, to ‘change of address’ without explanation. Entire building complexes built right in front of everyone, in prominent places effected by rigging the same departments which officers oversee. Much of this is done in trade with rich business patrons and partners in crime.
With the monied companies and their owners trading and bartering the people’s assets, very little is left over for the Treasury. All those waiting for their invoices to be honored by the Treasury are the Black people of Antigua, who have nothing to barter.
Namco (Nyamco) seems to have gone into oblivion with its chairman, and the CIP is one of the cheapest in the region, as low as $40,000 for an Antiguan passport. Even our Airport re-application for Category 1 is being jeopardized by the insistence on calling Barbuda International.
Finally the Treasury is making an asinine overreach for continued funding from Japan, by telling the world that 108 sq ml island of 100 thousand persons who don’t do whales except for watching, will fight all of them together supporting Japan to hunt and kill whales.
Suffering Local
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Don’t know who you are author,but kudos. An excellent summary of the failure of governance in Antigua and Barbuda. Corruption runs high among the rank and file, propped up by civil servants and ALP lackeys.
Thank you for pointing the inquiring light where it truly belongs.
Even our Airport re-application for Category 1 is being jeopardized by the insistence on calling Barbuda International.
CAN SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME IN MAKING SENSE OF THAT STATEMENT
Woyoy! Letter of the week/month/year – choose anyone folks!
The author has rightly touched on CIP and NAMCO as examples.
Many critical thinkers of this awful and lack of transparency ABLP government, are not in the least surprised. The author of this piece has correctly mentioned the issues that have concerned many of us, and left us scratching our heads as to where the money gone; and how it was utterly wasted.
The country SHOULD have been an economic powerhouse, but when you SEE with your own eyes and DON’T listen to Browne’s 🥸 nonsensical rhetoric, Antiguans realise nutting nah really go so. Tarl!
The last part about whaling makes sense to me now.
I didn’t understand Antigua’s stake in it.
P.S. Treasury nearga corrupt long time.
where’s the money we contribute to social security?
why we have to wait so long?
You get a government you deserve!
Antiguans love them some gaston!
They will soon find out the emperor has no clothes👀
And corruption and nepotism stinks to high heaven!
The question for me, has always been,
Why antigua look so?
Economic powerhouse my foot!
I bet you one dollar
You prime minister staying at the
Waldorf Astoria or the ritz Carlton
In nyc..
Meanwhile you can’t get water fo wash you kin😕
Meanwhile they have you guys all up Inna upp business
Distraction.🤣
Well said @Sandra Clark. If it was UPP business this would have exploded with comments from the carions,the political vultures.
NAMCO is a black hole where taxpayers money disappears without a trace. What is the auditor general doing? We know the DAWG is rinsing out APUA,Transport Board and State Insurance, is he doing the same to social security and medical benefits?
And the Labourites want the focus to be UPP. We,the patriots of this country, will not be fooled.
https://www.henleyglobal.com/citizenship-investment/antigua-barbuda
Requirements of Antigua and Barbuda citizenship by investment
To qualify for citizenship, the main applicant must be over 18 years of age, meet the application requirements, and select one of the following four options available:
A contribution to the National Development Fund of a minimum non-refundable amount of USD 230,000
A contribution to the University of the West Indies of a minimum non-refundable amount of USD 260,000
The purchase of real estate with a minimum value of USD 300,000 from an approved real estate project. Two applicants can make a joint investment with each applicant investing a minimum of USD 300,000 to qualify. The real estate cannot be disposed of within the five-year period
The direct purchase of an eligible business for a minimum amount of USD 1.5 million as an individual. Alternatively, a joint purchase where each person contributes at least USD 400,000, totaling a minimum of USD 5 million
You know the problem I have with these UPP operatives is that they do not change their strategy. They would write something, and have it published in these online media houses, who don’t give a damn whether or not the information is correct. And they hope that lazy individuals will not fact check them. But a simple google search on the price Antigua and Barbuda sells its CIP passport will tell you that what the writer wrote is pure doo doo. But who cares. It keeps them busy. They like to deceive people. And like now all those lies are catching up with them.
When they came to power in 2004 the first thing screamed was, the Treasury is empty, we have no money to pay for nothing. But I don’t know what they thought. Perhaps a stack of money was hiding somewhere in a vault and then they could go in there and take the cash. People these guys are so dotish it is not funny. Let me give them a bit of lesson how government works. The Treasury manage the Accounting of Government monies. The Ministry of Finance lead by the FS gives instructions to the Accountant General as how she wants the monies to be spend.
The government revenues are on a daily basis brought to the Treasury where it is not possible for the Custom or IRD to deposit directly into the Bank Accounts of the Treasury. Bank balances are analyzed daily to determine what funds are available and what payment should be given priority. Small contactor payments are delegated to the officers downstairs who have authority to pay up to let’s say $10K for any vendor. Larger amounts are at the discretion of the AG. And thereafter the FS and her team of Debt Management determine who and which bill gets paid. So, understand money is moving on a daily basis. From the Custom and IRD the main inflows to the Treasury for payment. And yes Antigua has a Fiscal problem. We do not generate enough money to pay all our bills on a timely basis. Therefore, we use discretion which to pay and which to hold. The IMF in their review notice that certain government agencies and state owned corporation have lots of monies sitting in their bank accounts, while the central government is strap for cash. That is bad cash management. Therefore, Cabinet has taken the policy decision that Statutory Corporations and State Owned Enterprises should report their excess cash to the Ministry so that the FS can determine what amount they should transfer to Central Government. The Treasury. It was lately disclosed e.g. that CMC has lots of unused cash. One perhaps cannot remember when CMC was in that position of having extra cash. In fact, in the early years of coming to office the Gaston Browne administration had to subsidize CMC on a quarterly basis. Now that CMC is on a good Cash Flow footing it is more then prudent cash management to have these excess cash transferred to Central Government. After All these are Statutory and State Owned corporations and therefore totally owned by the government.
What I have a problem with is that IMF was the one that made that revelation. Why didn’t the people in the Ministry of Finance do that. They are sleeping on the job. And giving the PM and Cabinet all the hard work to find cash. Now we know that the easy way for Cabinet is to instruct the CIU to transfer funds to the Treasury and where ever is needed. But now they also have the SOC and SC to do so. In bad times they run to the Treasury for money, so in good times the Treasury needs to get those monies back. The other SC that has excess cash is Transport Board. Given the amount of cars that we have it is easy to budget how much they would bring in each year in car licenses and road tax alone.
Therefore, when one says the Treasury is empty, it’s because they are either ignorant of how the system works or deliberate to mislead people. And think it is the latter.
Gaston was bred to be a curse on Antigua and Barbuda. Read ‘ The 13 Sins Of Gaston Browne Against The Antigua Labour Party ‘ by Lionel Hurst.
@ Less We Forget [You], after your long-winded diatribe, I knew that you wouldn’t mention the THIRD PARTY outsourcing problems with processing CIP/CBI applications, that have seen criminal rogues slip through the net and received Antiguan passports.
I’ve mentioned this serious loophole time and time again, and you Gastonites and ABLP acolytes never ever highlight this homeland security issue – ah so y’all love Gassssston so? Must be!!!
BTW, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO CHANGE YOUR MONIKER AGAIN @ FROM THE SIDELINE?
Biggest joker 🃏 on ANR threads …