by Reynold Benjamin

Since these articles on the Levera Project began, very many persons have spoken to me on the phone, in the street and on more intimate social and other occasions, expressing sentiments ranging from delight, to anger, to astonishment and to disbelief. But someone whom I know but to whom I never had spoken before telephoned to say that it is unnecessary for me to explain good governance because Grenadians know, from the experience we are having under Keith Mitchell, what is bad government. Yes, I said, but in a democracy you cannot take it for granted that we are all awake. If we are to be our brother’s keeper, I said, we must wake those who are asleep and wait for those who, we know, are coming in late. We held a lengthy conversation which has caused me to change, slightly, the format which I had intended to use for part five. I had promised readers that together we will put this government’s management of our economic and social resources under the microscope according to World Bank standards and that we will look at “transparency” and “accountability” as factors promoting sound management. We will do so. The plan is to scrutinize all the major projects undertaken by the NNP administration of Keith Mitchell since 1995, using the scant information available to us. We will start with the RSM offshore oil contract in 1996 and go on to the Queen’s Park Stadium on which I have some telling info, the Mt. Hartman Ritz Carlton Hotel Project, Ministerial Complex, Lagoon Road Development where there is a US$3 million case pending in our Court, the behind the scene dealings on Zublin’s Cruise Port Terminal and Car Park, Victoria Chicken Farm (don’t forget that one) and, then, come back to Levera.

But since it is common ground that our rich farmland is our main economic resource it is proper that we start with agriculture and to do so, properly, I think a rambling stroll through the woods of our economic history would not be a useless exercise. Those who went to university will tell you that Grenada, like other British West Indies Colonies, had a Plantation Economy. But let us keep this ramble out of the class rooms of academia. What the eggheads mean is simply that we grew things on large estates for export to Europe. The British, French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese and other European plunderers, when they failed to find gold here, recognized the agricultural potential of our island and encouraged ex-military personnel to take grants of large tracts of land to grow valuable crops for export to Europe. Experience soon taught them what the indigenous population already new, that is, that the climate is not conducive to labouring in the midday sun. So they turned to poor, oppressed and hungry whites from their own countries and soon found out that they, too, could not take the jamming. Enter the African. And, Europe has not been poor since. On the crack of the whip, our fore parents grew the cotton for the fine summer dresses of the European aristocracy, the cane to sugar their Indian tea and to supply the rum for their winter fireside repose and the tobacco and coffee that went with the good living. It was our rich agricultural land that enriched Europe. Around the plantation with its huge slave population to be clothed and fed, if it could be so described, the colonists built the island’s commerce. Hankeys & Co, Mc. Cartney & Williams, Jonas Brown & Hubbards, Huggins & Co etc. controlled the commercial sector by exporting produce from the estates and importing from the metropolis every manufactured requirement and, so, further enriching the motherland. Save for molasses and rum there were no processing or manufacturing of products grown on island. Despite emancipation of our fore parents in the nineteenth century, this economic arrangement of our agricultural economy, and its demeaning social byproducts, continued well into the middle of the Twentieth Century with little change, except for the type of crops grown for export. For various reasons, cotton, sugar and coffee declined and cocoa, nutmegs and bananas took their places as main export crops. The mass of the people remained economically and socially chained to the Estate owners and their estates until the arrival on the political scene, in 1951, of Eric Matthew Gairy. Through Gairy’s efforts political, social and economic convulsions took effect resulting in socio-economic rearrangements, in particular, the demise of the large, still partly absentee owned, estates. There are those who would argue that the subdivision of the estates and their distribution by Gairy to landless estate workers was the beginning of the decline of agriculture. In any event, if it were a factor it would be only one relevant and minor contributing factor. However, this ramble through the history of our agricultural economy is not meant to be controversial but only to enable assessment, understanding, analysis, appreciation of the difficulties and  to engender a capacity to move the most vital sector of our economy forward.

Whatever criticisms one may direct at Gairy and his Grenada United Labour Party, however, one is forced to admit that the welfare of farmers and agricultural workers was always close to the heart of the Labour Party. So much so that in March 1979, the People’s Revolutionary Government of Maurice Bishop inherited a robust and healthy agricultural sector and a well equipped, capable and competent Ministry of Agriculture which provided all necessary technical support to farmers. It is fair to admit that the PRG built on that foundation and made sterling efforts at creating down stream agricultural industries in the manufacture of products from local crops. Again, whatever the faults of the PRG, and you know there are so, so many, no one can fairly accuse that government of having neglected agriculture. I do wish that one of our readers would take the time to tell us of the many persons who received training in agricultural science under the PRG. Give Jack his jacket. As a small economy, Grenada would always be subject to and victim of the vagaries of the international market place. And thus the Herbert Blaize administration and the Nicholas Braithwaite administration expended considerable time and effort wrestling with the international forces that adversely affected the survival and growth of our agricultural economy. Suffice it to say, however, that agriculture was always on the front burner with both these governments as they fought for the survival of the banana industry and to keep cocoa alive. Who can forget George Brizan? I can say without fear of contradiction, therefore, that every government beginning with GULP in 1967 to 1979, followed by the PRG in 1979 to 1983, Herbert Blaize/ Ben Jones NNP/ TNP of 1984 to 1990 and Nicholas Braithwaite/George Brizan NDC of 1990 to 1996 gave agriculture the pride of place in economic planning that it rightly deserves. Can any self-respecting, fair-minded, discerning and honest Grenadian say the same of the Keith Mitchell government of 1995 to date? Keith Mitchell’s comments on the uselessness of agriculture and its place on his scale of economic planning priority is a matter of record for everyone to recall. His erstwhile Minister of Agriculture Joslyn Whiteman’s comments on the banana industry and the future of cocoa are, also, well documented.

It is clear to all, even the blind, the deaf and the dumb, that when Mitchell came to office, in 1995, he had absolutely no plan whatsoever for agriculture and today, still, he has no plan. We can look to statistics, those who believe in figures, on fall in value of our agricultural exports, to learn about what farmers are feeling in their pockets and are saying up an down the country.

Now, recall the World Bank’s definition of “governance” given above. You have the tool. Do the job. Agriculture is the most important sector of every country’s economy. How can you manage it with a view to development, without a plan? This, I respectfully submit, is not bad management; it is no management; at all.

In part six, I will look at the projects mentioned above.

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