Last Updated on November 27, 2019, 11:08 PM AST by Anthony Morris
The Federation’s Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Dr the Hon Timothy Harris, has been lying to the people of the twin-island about true state of the St Kitts-Nevis economy.
Over the years Dr Harris without giving actual GDP figures has been using phrases like “surpluses, surpluses, surpluses” and “the economy has expanded each year” with providing figures on the growth over the years, in an effort to deceive the people on the nation’s finances.
Douglas Wattley, former chairman of Harris’ People’s Labour Party (PLP) has accused Dr Harris of destroying a strong St Kitts and Nevis economy that he inherited from the Denzil Douglas Labour Administration when he took office in mid-February 2015.
Wattley suported his charge against Dr Harris by producing recent figures from the St Kitts-based Eastern Caribbean Bank (ECCB) to showed that Dr Harris plunged the economy into negative territory in 2017 although he has been telling the people of the nation that the economy expanded in every year since he took office.
According to the ECCB St Kitts and Nevis economy registered -1.98 GDP in 2017.
“He (Dr Harris) has lied about the economy. He has lied about the ecnomy because he has said time and time again that ‘the economy has expanded every year under Team Unity,’ Wattley told listeners to his weekly radio talk show “The Rebuttal.”
“You now know that that is a lie. The economy has not expanded every year under Team Unity. In fact the first year under Team Unity it contracted bigley from 6.28 percent to 1 percent and then it contracted again and the man ran the economy into a recession in 2017, in minus territory and there was no external shock or recession anywhere,” said Wattley.
Over the years, Dr Harris has been deceiving the people of the federation about the true state of the economy.
In March this year, he told Kittitians and Nevisians at a town hall meeting in Canada that since he becam Prime Minister of Federation, the economy of St Kitts and Nevis has decelerated or slowed and was no where near the six percent robust economy that he met when he assumed office.
Dr Harris steered clear of quoting or making reference to the growth rate for the years 2013 and 2014 the St Kitts-Nevis Labour Party administration led by Dr Denzil L Douglas.
“Positive means we are adding, negative means we are falling back. So it means each year we have add value to the economic life of the Federation in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 and they are predicting in 2019, we will grow again,” he said. With no response Dr Harris asked the audience to clap.
On February 1, 2018, under the headline, “St Kitts and Nevis records third consecutive year of economic growth, Prime Minister Harris is quoted as telling journalists and the nation at a press conference that for 2018, the economy is predicted to grow by about 3.7 percent.
“For the year 2017, we are recording an economic growth of about 2.6 %,” SKNIS quoted Dr Harris as saying.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
