Wide awake in ah dream

Ah read way de Central Bank of Trini-dad-he Toe-big-oh was revising its project-shun and reporting dat de country had entered a technical “Recess-shun” at de end ah 2011. Now whenever ah dealing wid topics in E-can-nah-mix like “Project-shun, Resess-shun, Depress-shun, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and so on, is Lie-Za ah does have to con-sult, she is ah E-can-ah-Miss. She add-vice me years ago: “Fools must stay out ah Wise people ting.” After pleading wid her, she decided to give me as simple as possible an example ah GDP.{{more}} She compared GDP wid ah Farmer and his wife who plant-up dey land, harvest and sell off dey crop, eggs, fruits, animals and so on. When dey collect all de money, de Gross Income, dey put dat on one side. Den dey count up all Expenses dey had incurred foh labour, fertilizer, food, clothes, lights and water and so forth during de period de crop was in de ground, and put dat on de other side. Nex dey match all Income wid all Expenses; after adding hey and subtracting dey, if dey have money lef back, dey could smile because dey have what is called “Positive Growth.” But on de other hand, if dey end up short and owing bills, dat is ah “Negative Growth” in dey domestic affairs.

She continued explaining dat two consecutive periods of planting and harvesting with Negative Growth or declining GDP, is all dat is required foh dat Farm to be generally defined as having ah Recess-shun. In de case ah T’n’T, de Central Bank noted dat de last two quarters in 2011, July to September and October to December, dat country experienced negative Growth of 2.6 percent which is equivalent to ah Recess-shun.

So my next question to Lie-Za was, how does her simple explanation apply to SVG dat had four consecutive years ah Negative Growth. She tell me ah must put dat question to de Pry-minister in De Love Vine. And she added dat ah must remind him dat five years ago, when it was declared dat de USA, and by extension de World E-con-ah-me was about to fall into Recess-shun, he did say dat SVG is safe and sound from any such cry-sis. Ah promise her ah will do it, but don’t expect any explanation, listen foh de cussing ah go get.

De problem wid SVG’s E-can-ah-me is dat we no way close to oil-rich, T’n’T or Lie-Za’s farming family; we produce absolutely nutten, not even Bananas anymore. De boats come hey week after week and all dey do is to drop off de used vehicles from Jah-pan; dey’s de painful sight ah scores ah 40 foot containers off-loading wid almost everything we consume, we are ah consume-eat people. De next thing is, we do not have ah project in de making dat will generate de sort ah income to help balance our E-can-ah-me. Check dem all out. Dey’s de cross Country Road way de wuk started at de beginning and de end de same time, no middle; Ah Stay-dum at Die- man. We had “ground breaking ceremony” foh ah Stay-dum; we had an engineering team wuking full time foh nearly two years at Die-man Estate; dat project is on hold wid-out ah single block laid.

God knows dat de Argyle Airport is ah needed project, but what ah burden dis is becoming, dis project will cost almost ah billion dollars, but can we honestly say dat it has generated de anticipated employment among Vincentians to increase circulation ah money in de stores and shops? Added to dis die-lime-yah, no one knows, not even de Pry-minister knows foh sure way de money coming from to build Airport. Not forgetting Bro Matthias, Mr Airport himself did say at de beginning, “We have de money to build de Airport.” And Sen Francis told Par-liar-mint dat de Airport will not cost Vincentians “one Red cent!” Our hope lies in doc-yuh-mints de Pry-minister holding close to his chest, ah hand-full ah “Verbal Pledges” and “un-written, unsigned agreements” based on ah “Colision ah de Will-in” dat he formed among new friends dat cannot be found, except Tie-One.

Like ah man “wide awake in ah dream” de Pry-minister manages to come up wid new visions, Ah four lane tunnel thru Cane Garden to ease traffic congestion coming from country-side; we can’t fix de existing gutters in de middle ah de roads, but we going to bore tunnel. Of course dat was ah bomb to detour those ah we wid tunnel-vision from de real issues. And de latest is dat dey’ll be a new port for Kingstown, whatever dat means. Now, we can’t complete ah Customs Building going on foh years, but we going foh a new port! Is de man foh real? Bananas dat once brought in 120 million dollars is down to nex to nutten foh de last six months; We keep hearing dat our E-can-nah-me is doing fine, like how? Mankind is simply catching dey tail, every way yuh go, people scrunting yuh; Kingstown is fast becoming ah city ah beggars. It is time to stop fooling de people. May I remind all about President Lincoln’s lickle quotation: “You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time.” When de Pry-minister was in Awe-position, his Feel Marshall, Blazer Williams uses to quote ah ting every week “Time is Running out!” And wid dat is gone ah gone again.

One Love Bassy

Bassy Alexander is a land surveyor, folklorist and social commentator.