The United Progressive Party (UPP) is calling the Gaston Browne Administration onto the carpet to account for over 26 development projects it promised the people during its nearly nine years in office.
The UPP notes that the Antigua Labour Party Government has failed to deliver over 3,000 new hotel rooms; 6,000 construction jobs; 7,000 permanent jobs; and injections totalling over US$5 billion into the local economy.
In a statement issued today, August 18, the UPP says the Browne Administration “has amassed the highest number of failed projects under any government in the history of Antigua and Barbuda – likely the poorest track record in the world.”
Amidst the current unemployment and underemployment crisis, the UPP is calling on the Government to provide updates or progress reports on these ventures – which, it says, has irresponsibly dashed many residents’ hopes and dreams of long-term prosperity.
The Party notes that these 26 major projects were announced by senior government officials during successive Budget presentations.
They include the Beaches Resort by Sandals Resorts; the Half Moon Bay Hotel; the Morris Bay/ Callaloo Cay Project; the Long Bay Hotel Resort by Ocean Jewels; the Valley Church Hotel that became the Calvin Ayre Wellness Resort; the Marriott Autograph Hotel at Yeptons; and the Beach Club at Fort James by Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.
Other failed ventures, the UPP points out, are the NAMCO acquisition of Jolly Beach Hotel; the Best Western Hotel at Jolly Harbour; the Marriott Courtyard Airport Hotel; the Mike Tyson Hotel; the YIDA Project; the Willoughby Bay Project; and, most recently, the Western Imperial Special Economic Zone (WISEZ).
Among the other stillborn developments are the Paradise Found and Armand Hotels on Barbuda and the US$300 million hotel and conference centre by an unnamed investor from Holland.
The full list of projects that have failed to materialize can be found on the UPP’s social media pages.
Meanwhile, Political Leader Harold Lovell says, “It is clear … that the Administration is either failing to attract the right kind of investors or failing to properly nurture investments which have the potential for success.”
Further, Lovell says, the Administration’s refusal to cooperate with the experts at the Antigua Barbuda Investment Authority has contributed to its litany of failures.
If even a quarter of these projects had found success, he says, the country would have been more resilient in its post-pandemic recovery.
Prime Minister Browne, himself, has acknowledged that the country is in an unemployment crisis.
During the 2021 Budget Presentation, Browne, the Minister of Finance, said that “figures from the Social Security Scheme indicate a decline of nearly 40 per cent in the number of contributors.”
He added that this translated to about 11,000 fewer employed persons than at the start of 2020.
“The rapidly growing list of failed projects confirms that the ALP Administration is incapable of reducing unemployment and providing adequate jobs for the thousands of school-leavers and returning graduates,” the UPP’s statement concludes.
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Lester’s wordscnah drop a grung. All they do is chat! RIP LB
Their mantra was more jobs less taxes but it has been the opposite. It has been more suffering . More self enrichment schemes. More corruption
The country is doing so badly that year after year, except 2020, all the international agencies are declaring that the economy of Antigua and Barbuda has been growing by an average of 5% per year. And last year, coming out of the worst pandemic, we still managed to grow the economy by 7%. Yu guys must be really living under a rock in Doomsday Island. Stay there before you guys infect us.
If Gaston’s projects failed, where is all this growth coming from? Borrowing? CIP? No seriously YIDA was supposed to pump $200 million a year into the economy. Are there other projects that replaced YIDA to generate the type of growth that you are claiming? It does not add up!
@From The Sideline
SHOW US THE ARTICLE IV, WHY ARE YOU SO AFRAID TO DO THIS?
What is the ECLAC and the ECCB and CDB report not credible enough for you. Even the World Bank Reports are online if you wish to educate yourself.
@ From The Sideline
Talk to the ordinary man about their situation in this country…..people hungry, broke, cannot even afford to buy a proper meal daily because of the high cost of living, no water to bathe, a prominent organisation says that Antigua top the eastern Caribbean for poverty, unemployment is sky high, gasoline is ridiculously high, pensioners cant get paid, workers striking consistently, LIAT CANNOT BE PAID, JOLLY BEACH CANNOT BE PAID…
YOU ARE LIVING ON TOP OF A ROCK CALLED ‘DECEPTION’ AND THATS ALL ABLP DOES, GIVE THE IMPRESSION THAT THINGS ARE GREAT WHEN ONLY THE ELITIST ENJOYING LIFE, WHILE THE POOR MAN CATCHING HELL.
SEE IF YOU CAN FIND A SECOND ROCK TO GET ON TOP OF, BECAUSE SOON ALL YOUR ROCKS WILL FALL LIKE HUMPTY DUMPTY.
People hungry and all the doom and gloom you guys preach is just a figment of your imagination. The poor we will always have with us. But overall people are working and making a living. Contruction booming so much that we may have to import skilled labour. Apart from National Housing and Private home construction the PHL project is just taking on all qualified tradesmen. But you guys can continue preaching doom and gloom. Soon people will wonder what the hell you guys are talking about. It will not work to talk about doom and gloom when unemployment is at its lowest. That despite coming out of a pandemic and now facing a world wide recession with inflation going through the roof in some countries.
Applaud u for seeing the good in all this because if u not seeing what the country is facing and people feeling the people in this island need ur glasses bad
@ From The Sideline
Figment of my imagination?
OBVIOUSLY YOU DO NOT LIVE HERE. ARE YOU LIVING ON MARS?
@ From The Sideline
See ‘Think about it’ comments below which are apt and clearly disputes your misleading chatter
You know I should ask you guys that question. Have you seen how people spent their monies during the last carnival? Especially the young people. They went to every fete. And those fetes were not cheap. Especially breakfast fete. Yet everyone was sold old. That is not what poor people do.
The country is doing so well that every day you hear of somebody robbed and properties broken into. And most of the time people are stealing food. People who have jobs don’t have time to rob people. You say the country Is doing well when so many people out of work and hungry. You and Gaston can continue to fool the people by reporting phoney statistics
GASTON IS THE WORST PRIME MINISTER EVER
ONE:
26 FAILED PROJECTS
TWO:
Most of his investor friends are in jail: Xiao Jianhua, Saab Moran, Peter Virdee
THREE
Reputable hotels don’t want to have anything to do with him( check out the WESTON TAPES)
FOUR
Give away our land
FIVE
As pm he has an advantage and he use that advantage to take advantage to compete with business people: farm, real estate, heavy-duty equipment
SIX
Comrade Max Fernandez got 6 million for Deluxe Cinema
SEVEN
Small contractors can’t get paid
EIGHT
Gas prices gone down put prices still high in ANTIGUA
NINE
Food prices are ridiculous-no stimulus
TEN
What is the latest on SHARE Charity
ELEVEN
Gaston had a supermarket in Jennings it failed. He worked at Swiss American Bank; it failed
He is associated with a bank that is now being sued.
TWELVE
Fire trunk situation so houses burn down
THIRTEEN
Lost Canadian VISA Status
FOURTEEN
YIDA failed
FIFTEEN
WISEZ failed
SIXTEEN
Economic Recovery Commission failed
SEVENTEEN
500 houses in 500 days failed
EIGHTEEN
NO WATER( Granny car bathe)
NINETEEN
Hospital is in a mess
TWENTY
Crime gone up
TWENTY
The country look run-down and St. John’s is stink
TWENTY- ONE
Nugent Ave hospital is a white elephant
TWENTY-TWO
Ebooks scandal
TWENTY-THREE
2 BILLION CIP MONEY WASTED
TWENTY-FOUR
Gaston whatever happen to the Ghost cemetery
TWENTY-FIVE
Whatever happen to Barbuda Airways
TWENTY-SIX
What ever happen to the 5.7 million spent on the cement factory
TWENTY-SEVEN
Not respected overseas-failed Euro bond
TWENTY-EIGHT
NO VISION-Cog UPP
TWENTY-NINE
Under Gaston Browne more pickets and strikes than under any other government
THIRTY
Gaston Browne is a vagabond.
THIRTY-ONE
Gaston Browne pulled down his pant and showed his bottom to the world!
WOW! A TRUE!! Dem can’t hide from the TRUTH.
I told them to check the radiata on the “Big Red Machine” before they crank it up.
The subben dun mash a ready. Lard!! Look a Joke!!! All dem fail projects. This a one real
whodini administration.
We tired a dem tricks. “Tricks are for Kids.”
Dis a big people subben. Government a big subben.
You can’t do the job. Don’t apply!!
Real talk!!!
If the UPP finds themselves empowered and doesn’t deliver timely, efficient solutions to the “ills” created ostensibly by the ABLP, then I suppose they’re so many political blowhards and charlatans as well.
They best deliver the goods they criticize others for not delivering, and that not at the cost of sovereignty and liberty to A&B.
The country is doing so well that every day you hear of somebody robbed and properties broken into. And most of the time people are stealing food. People who have jobs don’t have time to rob people. You say the country Is @doing well when so many people out of work and hungry. You and Gaston can continue to fool the people by reporting phoney statistics
How much time you will the UPP to correct the damage done to this country by fifty years of labour and an empty treasury and all the debt?
ABLP is an elitist party!
🦓🦓🦓🦓🦓 Gaston Browne ask Max Fernandez to return the millions paid for Deluxe, give him back Deluxe and use the money to finish the Car Park.
St. John’s need the Car Park.
Stop your badmindedness. Antigua people want the car park. You take Five Islands children school but leave the car park, as is, just to be critical of UPP.
Let your supporters know that UPP did not spend any money on the Car Park.
Tell them how much ALP spent on it.
From the Sideline do you know their can be economic growth and a population is still suffering and cannot feel the growth. That happens when the benefits of the growth only goes to a few in the society. In the case in Antigua most of the benefits from the growth go to a few businessmen and Gaston Browne, his family and political cronies.
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