We Will Make Do

The old time Antiguans have sayings that are usually very apt to suit certain occasions.

For example, there is a saying "Wha fly min dey do before owl lady yeye start foo run water"? The answer is that the fly used to survive! So, "Wha Antigua min dey do before Stanford come ya?" "Arwe used to survive an' cut an' contrive!"

We do not want to gloat over the misfortunes of Stanford or rejoice over the loss of the hundreds of jobs that have been lost by our citizens and other people who have chosen to live among us.

We sympathize with all those who have suffered, but in the process we have to castigate Lester Bird and the Antigua Labour Party for rushing blindly into a situation where they were willing to prostitute themselves and their country by giving in to all the whims and fancies, requests and demands of their over generous benefactor - Allen Stanford.

It is useless for the ALP to make a belated attempt to distance itself from the gory details of his fall from financial grace. It is unfortunate, b ut, the process of his fall has been sensationallly international and in terms of propriety, sordidly distasteful.

It is one thing for Sir Dwight Venner, governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank to declare the stability of our banking system and all the checks and balances that exist; but it is another thing for poor depositors who have toiled midst blood, sweat and tears to accumulate a little nest egg to rest comfortably amidst all the rumours and factual reports that are swirling about their heads in their living rooms, all day long and all night long.

And to cap it all, Antigua has become the epicentre of all the gruesome details. We had a reporter in London when Northern Rock crashed and we were able to observe first hand how thousands of people fretted and panicked to secure their life savings, even though the Bank of England openly assured them that all was well.

The little depositor is not an economist, a financial guru or a university or Central Bank executive. He goes by his gut-feeling because his hopes and fears contribute to his nightly stress and strains about his financial future. It is that same little man who banded and bonded together to create The Antigua Commercial Bank that became a financial giant in this c ountry.

It is that dogged determination that motivates those hundreds of people who stand in line for hours because they are fearful lest they will eventually be told that in the unfolding crisis they are only entitled to so many cents on the dollar.

This is where the party that constitutes the government comes in. Up to now, the ALP has not shown us how they intend to secure the financial stability of this nation. We have been given no financial policy or guideline but the war cry is to abolish this, abolish that, cut this and cut out that.

We have been presented with no clear plan that will lead to an accretion or accumulation of national wealth, but in the final analysis, Lester Bird has indicated that Uncle Allen and his bank will be there to buttress after we have abolished everything. But Uncle Allen's bank and his whole financial system is in dire receivership. So "Wha fly min dey do before owl lady yeye start to run water?"

Lester does not know because he has always lived on easy street and has led this country with a policy of "gie-way, gie-way, gie-way."

We cannot expect the United States, Canada, Britain and the European Union to tax their people, give us of those taxes while we hold out hands like diseased mendicants with the policy fo "gie-me, gie-me, gie-me" and of "no-pay, no-pay, no-pay" while we stagger around the organisations of the world with the reputation of being international gate crashers, bums and looters.

The UPP has refused to sign away any more of our patrimony to Stanford and they have broken with the policy of Lester who wanted to give Stanford anything, anywhere in either Antigua or Barbuda. So "Wha fly min dey do before owl lady yeye begin to run water?" Fly min hab foo fend foo he-self.