Prime Minister Godwin Friday has rejected Opposition Leader Ralph Gonsalves’ criticisms of the New Democratic Party’s (NDP) proposed national development bank, saying the former prime minister has displayed a “stunning lack of imagination”.
Friday said in Parliament on Tuesday that Gonsalves’ debate of the motion by government senator, Chelsea Alexander, reflected a lack of vision and an attachment to past approaches to governance.
He said Gonsalves’ outlook showed why the electorate rejected his Unity Labour Party in the Nov. 27 general election, when Friday led the New Democratic Party to a 14-1 victory, ending 25 years in the political wilderness.
During the campaign for that election, the NDP had promised to reintroduce a national development bank, the ULP having shut down the previous one after coming to office in 2001.
Alexander said the national development bank would expand access to development financing for small and medium‑sized enterprises and other vulnerable sectors.
However, Gonsalves questioned the need for and the viability of such a bank, arguing that the country already had a range of “fit-for-purpose institutions and public policies” that serve many of the functions proposed for the national development bank.
He mentioned the development corporation, founded in the 1960s and later evolving into a development bank that his government shut down, as well as the former National Commercial Bank, which later evolved into Bank of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Gonsalves also spoke of the Student Loan Company, the Farmer Support Company, and programmes like PRYME and no‑down‑payment mortgages for public servants, which his government introduced.
“… the point I want to make, without establishing a national development bank, a number of fit-for-purpose institutions and public policies were created,” he said.
He questioned where cheap and sustainable funding for a development bank would come from, warning about interest rates, administrative costs, and non‑performing loans:
“You have to find money… sufficiently cheaply and on such excellent terms that you can lend in a preferential manner. …
“You may well end up with your national development bank where the funding is just not available at rates of interest and on terms to make it viable,” he said.
However, the prime minister rejected Gonsalves’ argument, saying they show why voters rejected him at the polls.
“Everything that I heard from the Honourable Leader of the Opposition display a stunning lack of imagination,” Friday said
“That tells me this is what the people had in mind when they said, it’s not just an election that you lose, it’s a repudiation of everything that you stood for with respect to governance in this country,” he said.
The prime minister suggested that his government was a break with what he described as backwards-looking leadership.
“You can’t govern based on simply everything that you saw in the past. You have to plan for the future,” the prime minister told Parliament.
“And that is what we bring to the table… a fresh approach, a new way of looking at things, more creativity, more diligence, hard work and putting the people of this country first,” he said.
The prime minister highlighted Gonsalves’ position to the motion, saying that the opposition had clearly set itself against an institution meant to help ordinary Vincentians.
“Let the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines register this: the opposition opposes the national development bank, an institution that is there to give small business people, ordinary people, fisher folk, access to capital, to guidance so that they could build themselves up. They are against that,” Friday said, adding that the position was “extraordinary”.
The prime minister said that Gonsalves said the former government had eight institutions performing the roles the new government wanted to put under one umbrella.
“He said they have eight institutions that we’re trying to replace. We’re trying to put one institution to do what eight institutions [are] doing. And he says that’s inefficient,” Friday said.
The prime minister contrasted his government’s plans with what he portrayed as the poor performance of some existing programmes that Gonsalves had mentioned as alternatives.
“The Farmers support company have — 75% of the loans that they have don’t get repaid. We will do things better,” Friday said.
“And the more I see from the finances of this country, the less advice I want to hear from the former prime minister, from the former Minister of Finance and anybody on that side of the house,” he told Parliament.
Friday insisted that the motion represented a deliberate attempt to rationalise and improve the existing landscape of financial support rather than simply add another layer of bureaucracy:
“We’re trying to put one institution to do what eight institutions [are] doing,” he said, adding that a national development bank could be more coherent and accountable in delivering development financing than the current patchwork.
Debate on the motion was adjourned to a future date, as the time allocated for private members’ motions expired at 5 p.m.
