UPP Stages Protest Against YIDA Agreement and Social Security Investment

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UPP Stages Protest Against YIDA Agreement and Social Security Investment; Wehner Joins Call for Accountability


The opposition United Progressive Party (UPP) staged a protest this week against the government’s handling of key national investment initiatives, drawing attention to the controversial YIDA project and the use of Social Security funds in the Jolly Beach Resort.

George Wehner, UPP candidate for St. Peter, joined party members on the picket line, expressing strong opposition to what he called the “failed” US$2 billion (EC$5.4 billion) YIDA development. He called for the immediate revocation of the project’s licensing agreement, citing a lack of tangible benefits for the people of Antigua and Barbuda.

“The people of St. Peter and greater Antigua and Barbuda deserve transparency and results — not broken promises,” Wehner said during the demonstration.

He also criticised the government’s decision to invest Social Security Trust Fund resources into the financially troubled Jolly Beach Resort, warning that the fund needs “an injection of liquid cash, not a debt swap of a failed asset.”

The protest, held under the banners #RevokeTheYIDALicensingAgreement and #HandsOffSocialSecurityTrustFunds, comes amid growing public scrutiny of the government’s financial management and economic priorities.

The government has yet to issue a formal response to the protest or the demands raised.

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18 COMMENTS

    • a LIE dem LIE just like the man in the middle. Neargah nah hab time fu waste with them jokerz

      Pearl “FOOTS” Quinn
      George “RENT House” Wehner
      Harold “ROMANTIC RHYTHMNS, IMF, OLD ENGINES” lOVELL

  3. mercyyyyyy look a people! What a MASSIVE CROWD!!! 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

  4. As usual Richard Lewis BOYCOTT UPP activities and then he expects to be magically supported for party leadership. Richard Lewis is NOT a teamplayer!!!!!!

  5. Again, UPP leading the way in protesting how the ABLP continually finds ingenious ways of wasting taxpayers money; and it’s people like Karl Davis who will always allow the unaccountability (in financial matters) of Gaston Browne to continously misuse treasury funds.

    Maybe Karl doesn’t live here like Dr Dave Ray.

    Antigua must be one of the few countries to allow a Person to hold the office of Prime Minister and Finance Minister. Why oh why?

    This is a conflict of interest, and to the detriment of Antigua & Barbuda as a whole. Haven’t the ABLP got a muvh better qualified cabinet member to handle our finances separately from Browne?

    Gambling with taxpayers money has been an absolute disaster over the last 10-11 years.

  6. Soooo happy to see that Antigua people are not stupid like the opposition seems to think. This piss poor shitty “turnout” speaks volumes. Compare it to the WHITE MARCH Labour Party had against the UPP taking the country to the IMF under Harold Lovell and his wicked “Sunshine government”. Proud of my people jack.

    People are not stupid. UPP stupid!

  7. lol, Harold Lovel stated in 2015 he was going to legally challenge the government over the Yida issue during a visit to the Snakepit.
    But denies his administration wanted anything to do with Yida as they felt he did not have the resources; but the UPP Cabinet granted Yida Zhang the required aliens land holding license need for the land purchase from the Stanford liquidator!
    Oh, and then the Browne administration waived all the associated stamp duties etc worth about us$5m .
    The ecocide game continues ………….

  8. @Brixtonian
    I just left Antigua last Sunday after spending 6 weeks there. Did you show up to the picket this morning? That would have increased their numbers to 16 picketers. If Lovell showed up, it would be 17 strong voices.

  9. @Dr. Dave Ray,
    Be sure to have your immigration documents in order.
    Trump administration has just announced it will looking into green cards files, and marriage files that looks like arranged marriages.

    You can bet your last dollar, that when Zohran Mamdani becomes Mayor of New York City; the National Guard will be on the streets of New York if not before.

    Those with naturalized citizenship means those are the files to be targeted, for there was a ton of fraudulent marriages in the Bronx.
    I know you are one of them. But they are grabbing innocent people.
    Get your house in order Dr. Ray, and heed the advice of Brixtonian.
    Your ability to rundown for Carnival and back snd coward may be curtailed.

  10. Was it a private picket?
    At least each candidate could bring 5heir car full of persons to improve the showing.

  11. The picketers are smiling seems as though they are having fun and they are there just for 5he photo.
    Seriously they look so joyful.

  13. You know the funny thing about this protest? They are protesting for Gaston to still continue to take the tax payers money and squander it. It’s like they are shouting to Gaston to take up the people tax monies with his left hand instead of his right hand, and it’s in the same tax payers coffers, wether nyamco or wioc or social security, the people will suffer more , the hospital will have shortages of medicines and equipment failure and other infrastructural failure making it hard to treat the sick.
    This dictator Gaston got such a strangle hold over the country beating the people and opposition that we are volunteering to take the licks across our back instead of our @$$.

  14. I don’t know that numbers are really the biggest significance in a picket. The fact that most of the population don’t know what’s in the Yida proposed agreement, signed by one man is our real worry. The opposition should make this document available to the public for the umpteenth time and make rounds on the radios to sensitize the populace of the treasonous act by this Mobster.

  15. The truth is many of us know family or friends who have struggled to collect Social Security benefits, pensions, or medical payments. Yet too often people stay silent, saying “well, it’s not me” — until the problem reaches their own doorstep.

    We may laugh at or dismiss those who protest, but history reminds us that change only comes when people are willing to stand up. V.C. Bird himself was mocked in his day, but he stood firm for what he believed the people deserved.

    At the end of the day, whatever the outcome, we all live here. It’s better to stand for something you believe in than to sit back and stand for nothing at all.

    StandForSomething #SocialSecurityMatters #TransparencyNow #WeDeserveBetter

    • What was supposed to be a show of strength by the United Progressive Party (UPP) outside Parliament yesterday turned into an embarrassing flop, as only six people turned up to protest the motion to transfer Jolly Beach Hotel to the Antigua and Barbuda Social Security Board.
      The dismal turnout exposed the party’s dwindling influence and failure to connect with the public, despite repeated calls for mass mobilization. Instead of a crowd, the protest resembled a handful of stragglers, leaving government MPs to press ahead with the motion unchallenged.
      The spectacle has fueled questions about whether the UPP can rally meaningful support on issues of national importance, or whether the party has simply lost its ability to move the people it claims to represent.

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