Portsmouth Secret Scheme

The P.D.M is greatly disturbed by allegations tying Prime Minister Skerrit to a secret scheme to place the economic life of the people of Portsmouth under foreign control. The allegations were made by David Hsui, Dominica’s Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China. Prime Minister Skerrit calls the Ambassador his friend and brother.

This friend and brother Ambassador made the allegations in a statement sworn to by him which is now evidence before the high Court of the British Virgin Islands. Under the scheme government would provide all kinds of concessions and incentives to enable private investors from mainland China to come to Portsmouth to set up small and medium businesses there. The Ambassador and his chosen investors would be given full authority to decide which foreigner or foreign company or organization could invest in Dominica as a whole. And government would have no control whatsoever over how the Ambassador and his investors carried on their business.

Sisters and brothers of Portsmouth. Some of you may be saying how good this sounds. You may be saying how much development this is going to bring to our community. You may be saying that after 50 years of unbroken rule by the Labour Party, and having seen nothing after all these years, it’s Portsmouth time now. And, you may be having visions of plenty employment and plenty of dollars in circulation.

But if you stop, open your eyes and use your common sense, you will soon come to realize that this kind of development would be the worst thing that could ever happen to the economy of Portsmouth, to Portsmouth people and to the people of Dominica on a whole.

Whom do you think will own these small and medium businesses? Portsmouth people? Dominicans? Of course not. Foreigners will own them! Whom do you think will manage the businesses? Portsmouth people? Dominicans? Of course not. Our people will not even get near the Managers’ offices! Whom do you think will get the decent and well-paying jobs? Portsmouth people? Dominicans? Look at what happened with the construction of the stadium. A nice project. We thank the government and people of China for it. But how many Dominicans got jobs on the project? How many Dominicans were able to make a dollar by selling anything at all to the Chinese workers on the project? Look at what is happening in the shops in Roseau owned by foreigners! We would be lucky if we got jobs as cleaners in the shops and as dishwashers in the kitchen of the Chinese restaurants! What do you think will become of the profits made by these investors? Will the profits remain here to be ploughed back into the economic life of Portsmouth or the rest of the country? Or, will the profits be sent back for further investment in China and whichever other country these investors are coming from?

Sisters and brothers of Portsmouth. We don’t have to tell you the answers to these questions. Read the book Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams of Trinidad. Talk to our Chinese friends. They themselves will be the first to tell you that, led by Chairman Mao Tse Tung, they had to fight a long and bitter war of liberation to get rid of foreign control of their country. Ask the newly formed organization of Portsmouth businessmen. All these people will tell you one thing: and that is that the surest way to bring poverty and wage-slavery to your people is to allow foreigners to come in and take control of your resources and of your opportunities for doing business.

Mind you. P.D.M is not against foreign investment. We are fully in favour of such investment provided it cannot be done by local investors, by joint ventures of one kind or another or by the State itself. Provided that the investment brings good-paying jobs to our people. Provided it puts enourmous revenue in our Treasury. Provided it brings economic development rather than poverty to our people. And provided it does not make us beggars and second-class citizens in our own country.

But what does Prime Minister and his new generation Labour Party care? So long as their nests are properly feathered. So long as they get money to run their 2010 campaign. So long as they think our people can be easily fooled by handouts at the Wednesday and mobile clinics.

If our Prime Minister cared about the people of Dominica, would he have sold out the future of our geo-thermal energy to a company controlled by Russians? If our Prime Minister cared, would he have sold out our claim to Bird Island to Venezuela? If our Prime Minister cared about the development of Dominica and its people would he have sold out our sand, tarrish and pumice to Gadakan and others for a couple of cents a ton while these foreign companies rake in millions.

If our Prime Minister really cared about the people of Portsmouth, who have voted Labour continuously for 50 years, would he have been selling out the economic future of the constituents at the very moment he was welcoming the formation of an organization of leading business persons in the community?

If he really cared about Labour’s potato garden, instead of promoting a foreign take-over of Portsmouth, would he not have put in place a package of concessions and incentives to stimulate the growth of businesses there as well as to encourage persons bent in that direction to set up new businesses? Would government not have removed those derelict ships in the Portsmouth habour which have been there for how many years now? Would the many tourist sites and beauty spots not have been upgraded to boost the community’s tourism sub-sector? Would feeder roads not have been built or repaired to stimulate agricultural production in the area? Would government have insulted our Japanese fishing complex team the last time they were here, by having a select group from the Labour Party Portsmouth Constituency Association meet with them rather than, as protocol would have suggested, an official government delegation? Would the Cabrits to Cottage underwater dive sites not have been long transformed into the multi-million dollar industry which knowledgeable people in the business say they can become?

If Prime Minister Skerrit really cared about the development of Portsmouth and its people would his government have built a closed bridge over the Indian River against the wishes of everyone in the community, when he knew fully well that an open bridge was what was needed to develop the river into a safe haven for ships during the hurricane season? If Prime Minister Skerrit really cared about the people of Portsmouth, would that second town have remained without a resident Magistrate since June last year, that is to say, for 9 months now? And if he cared just a little, would the crime situation in the community be as bad as it has been for some time now?

We in P.D.M want to remind you that on May 1st 2007, that is to say, three weeks before the arrival in our country of a team of investors from the People’s Republic of China, our Party said this. And we say it again: “Foreign investment must seek to complement investment by our local private sector. It must not seek to displace or marginalize local investment.”

We firmly believe that Prime Minister Skerrit’s secret scheme to let loose Chinese investors on the Portsmouth community will marginalize some of the community’s private sector and displace most of them. That is not the way to go. Neither for Portsmouth. Nor for our country on a whole.

The way to go, in our opinion, is for our government to sit and engage in dialogue with our private sector so as to put in place a business sector plan which creates a climate in which business can thrive and jobs cab be provided. We believe that such a plan must seek to remove those constraints which in the past and even now have held back the advance of local business: the high costs of doing business here. The unnecessary bureaucratic procedures, and the delays which result from them, which businessmen have to face in doing business in our country. A legislative situation in which, for example, it takes about a year on average to get a First Certificate of Title to land and twice that time for a civil matter to reach trial in the High Court. And we believe that the way forward is for our business sector to change direction towards value-added production using our own natural resources rather than merely importing goods for sale locally.

We, therefore, call on Prime Minister Skerrit to let the nation know whether the allegations made by Ambassador Hsui are true or false. This is not the time for silence. It is not the time for diverting the attention of the people. Is it true? Or is the Ambassador a liar? We want the Skerrit administration to know that uncontrolled foreign investment has always brought mass poverty to the receiving country. We advise Prime Minister Skerrit that if what Ambassador Hsui has stated is true he had better change his mind. We call on the people of Portsmouth to let their voices be heard. And we invite them to join with P.D.M in discussing a solid and workable development plan for the town and for the area as whole.

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William Para Riviere
Political Leader
March 17th 2009

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