Parry: CCM needs to take responsibility for their failures
ZIZ News — Hon. Joseph Parry says Vance Amory and his administration need to take responsibility for their failures in government and stop blaming the Nevis Reformation Party (NRP) and federal government for their inadequacies.
Speaking this morning, Mr. Parry said 15 months after taking office, the Concerned Citizens Movement-led Nevis Island Administration has no one but itself to blame for the present financial crisis facing Nevis.
He said the present fiscal disaster was as a result of the extravagant and unsustainable expenditure of the CCM administration.
“People were being paid far more than they were being paid under NRP to the point that they have created their own financial crisis and they are trying to blame us for it, because that is part of the strategy; blame NRP for their financial situation, claim that Douglas is not helping them. These are the kinds of behaviour and tactics that they have used on Nevis people, and up to a point, fairly successfully,” he said.
The former Nevis premier noted that his administration’s strategy had been to reduce the Nevis’ debt through prudent planning and careful expenditure. He noted that while the debt figures left behind by the NRP may sound high – figures happily paraded about by the CCM in condemnation of the NRP – careful comparison of actual expenditure by both administrations reveals a different story.
“This was the Permanent Secretary’s strategy, Laurie Lawrence, to try to make sure that we paid our overseas debt [so] that we did not build up a bad reputation overseas, because if you build up a bad reputation, you can’t borrow when you need,” he said.“
And so we made sure that we covered our overseas debt. 32 cents out of every dollar was going towards debt, both local and overseas. So we were reducing our overseas debt and at the same time we were driving up our local debt. So you have a situation where $281 million dollars of debt you left there and then you leave $344 million, a difference of $63 million. So when they are arguing, and I have been told that this is the strategy advised by PAM and their handlers from St. Kitts, and go all over and say we met a debt of over $60 million dollars and this is why we couldn’t pay salaries,” he added.
“But we had a debt of $59 million and we could pay salaries. The difference in the debt was $63 million dollars. If you average it, and this is how you average it; fourteen years into 281, and 6 into 63 you will see that they were increasing the debt twice as we were. Simple! So we didn’t leave any catastrophe behind, but propaganda and a repetition of propaganda is what they use all the time to fight,” Parry said.