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go through Thomson Fontaine
January 13, 2018 at 9:20 AM
Britain continues to struggle after Hurricane Maria
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Roseau, Dominica (TDN)
– The future of the Dominican Republic has never looked so bleak, and as 2018 dawns, there is little reason to be optimistic. In fact, the main factors that contributed to the country’s demise were exacerbated by Hurricane Maria, a storm that has only happened once in a century. First, the economic fortunes of the Dominican Republic have been declining for years. Under Skerrit’s Dominican Workers’ Party (DLP), economic growth averaged 1.3% between 2000 and 2016, compared to 4.6% under the Dominican Liberal Party (DLP) from 1980 to 1995 and 2.8% under the United Workers’ Party (UWP) from 1995 to 2000. This is deeply troubling, as it means that things will only get worse if the DLP remains in power. This is so because the DLP government has shown itself to be incompetent, with mismatched ministers and ill-prepared for the task. Worse still, they have failed to recognize their shortcomings and seek and implement good economic advice. Nowhere is this more evident than in the government’s decision to de-emphasize agriculture, a sector that makes a huge contribution to the country. Worse still, the government has adopted a foolish policy of trying to develop tourism without considering the need to facilitate the arrival of tourists to Dominica. One could argue that the government’s half-hearted attempt to refurbish Melville Hall Airport, even installing lights to facilitate nighttime landings, was a failure and ended soon after it began. As a result, after spending millions of dollars on so-called upgrades, the airport today sees fewer tourists than we saw in the early 1980s. Any basic thinking would reveal that creating a successful tourism product would require an international airport and more hotel rooms than the mere 780 rooms available on the eve of Hurricane Maria. The economy had been stagnant long before Hurricane Maria due to a failure to secure the agricultural sector. Youth unemployment was out of control and poverty levels were rising rapidly, rapidly eroding what was left of the middle class. Moreover, the social ills that followed made life miserable on the island. Before Hurricane Maria, the country was plagued by (i) corrupt and incompetent governance, (ii) mass out-migration, and (iii) poverty and high unemployment. Maria has succeeded in exacerbating these ills, which, if left unchecked, will only lead to further destruction. Let’s take the state of governance, for example. Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has apparently decided that his best hope for legitimizing his leadership is to launch a relentless campaign against the opposition and destroy all legislative controls designed to constrain him. He single-handedly destroyed the Public Integrity Commission, reducing its size and, more importantly, stripping it of its ability to challenge the “source of wealth” issues he had previously raised. Unwilling to risk a disastrous electoral defeat, the Prime Minister brazenly enacted legislation that would legalize voter bribery, support bloated electoral lists, and effectively stifle electoral reform. Electoral reform would have died a painful death in the Dominican Republic and paved the way for his party to remain in power if it had not been for the courageous protests of a handful of patriots that forced the legislation to be suspended. On September 20, 2017, just two days after Maria’s bill was passed, leading members of the opposition were summoned to court on charges of launching the February 7 coup against the government. This callous attempt to use the court system to destroy the opposition is just one of the shameful attempts by this government to cling to power. The government’s failure to adequately address Ross University’s concerns, or even to proactively engage with them before Ross University decided to relocate to the United States, and to offer firm assurances that they would return to the Dominican Republic, is a testament to its incompetence. The Dominican Republic has had a medical university since 1980, but while it has grown and prospered, the infrastructure so vital to an institution of learning has stagnated. Portsmouth Hospital is in worse shape now than it was in 1980, and the Princess Margaret Hospital has barely improved in the interim. The creaks and groans of a country struggling under the weight of a government that is demonstrably incompetent and unable to do good for its people are undoubtedly heard and felt. Will this situation explode into social unrest in 2018, or will reason prevail? In the year ahead, the Dominican public must be given electoral reform and reasonable assurances that those who remain on the island will have a fair chance to determine their own destiny. Anything less than that will be a huge loss to the country and its citizens, at least those who remain. Official data provided by the government shows that up to 25% of the population (17,000 people) have fled the country using Maria as an excuse. Meanwhile, hundreds of people have lost their jobs as a direct result of Maria, and there is no expectation that these jobs will be restored anytime soon.
Meanwhile, the country as a whole seems lost and in a perpetual state of despair as the government seems overwhelmed and unable to accomplish the task of rebuilding the country after Hurricane Maria.
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