( Don’t let them take our Dominica from us )
When Siffleur Montagne Chorale sang this “National Anthem” about half a century ago, images of Europeans or American modern pirates filled my imagination…
Never in my wildest dream could I envisage a native ” son of the soil ” leader and Prime Minister being the one who would give it all away or sell it for the proverbial thirty pieces of silver.
First they took over our city, with almost 90 % of all stores in Roseau now occupied by Chinese,displacing the once bustling indigenous businesses.
Emboldened by the extreme tolerance of a mostly docile and unsophisticated citizenry, project after project, budget after budget, foreign owned companies were the major beneficiary.
Even the most sacred of our prized sovereignty – our passport was sold to the lowest bidder, so while a few million dollars came to the national treasury, unknowingly to the Parliament of Dominica, the multi BILLIONS was hidden away in foreign bank accounts, known only to the passport magnates and Prime Minister Skerrit, untill the probing eye and razor sharp mind of opposition Leader Lennox Linton unravelled the mystery of the missing billion dollar passport escapade.
Using every conceivable opportunity, our national patrimony was syphoned with impunity.
From the geothermal $100 million money laundering experiment where mainly foreign companies were smiling all the way to their million dollar bank accounts…mission accomplished for them, but not even a half megawatt geothermal power plant for Ma Dominique.
Then came the fury of category five hurricane Maria in the year 2017…
Dominica was demolished beyond recognition …
an opportunity to put Dominicans to work you would think , but not so thought the supremo…
We saw BIG THUMB trucking we saw DOMINICA STRONG…we saw heavy equipment like we never saw before , displacing and replacing the once proud Public Works Department …
A new heavy truck and heavy equipment monstrosity of a garage emerged at the northern end of the Canefield Airstrip….this new voracious DOMINICA STRONG “Public Works” entity’s appetite could not be quenched to the dismay and abandonment and displacement of local truckers and Indeginous heavy equipment owners.
It was not anyone taking anything from us as Siffleur Montagne Chorale sang, but rather it is a “cooperating” Prime Minister GIVING IT ALL AWAY
He gave it all away to Montreal Management for every single housing apartment project after Maria, he gave it all away for the construction of 10 health centres and the Marigot hospital,
He is giving it all away to Montreal Management for the un-tendered, unbudgeted, unstudied, unapproved by Parliament chaotic International Airport plan of a misguided Captain.
Will you let him give it all away ?