BILLION DOLLAR BREAKTHROUGH IN ST LUCIA-TAIWAN RELATIONS

KENNY ANNOUNCES MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR TAIWANESE YACHTING DEAL

Everybody knows that Labour made a big mistake by going to Beijing before being told that  they had no choice but to stick with Taipei.

Ever since then, Taipei has punished Labour for lumping them in with the corrupters of the last Flambeau government, dribbling out aid to them, because, after all, why would you want anything from the people whose ambassador you described as an enabler of corruption.

Without Taiwan’s largesse, St Lucia would have been in the stifling economic situation it is in now, long before Labour came to power.

With Taiwan’s aid, the world’s economic downturn could be little more than a blip on our economic radar, rather than a black hole sucking us, inexorably into the abyss.

Today, there was a surprising breakthrough in St Lucia-Taiwan relations that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to St Lucia over the next decade.

Prime Minister Dr Kenny Anthony announced that following up on his trip to Taiwan with Cuthbert Didier in tow, the St Lucian government has struck a deal to register Taiwanese yachts under the St Lucian flag.

Taiwan is the world’s largest builder of yachts. Ironically, because of their unique position in the United Nations (they kinda don’t exist sometimes), their own yachts can’t be registered in their country.

During that visit to Taiwan, Didier and Prime Minister Dr Kenny Anthony delighted high level government officials with proposals to register their yachts in St Lucia. With thousands of yachts waiting to be registered almost immediately and hundreds a year expected to be registered in the foreseeable future, the deal is expected to be worth tens of millions this year alone. The mid-term forecast is that by the time Kenny Anthony leaves office, the yachting deal would have poured over a hundred million dollars into St Lucia and over the long haul, it could be, like agriculture and tourism, a billion-dollar industry, all by itself.

The St Lucian prime minister and his delegation also  tried to interest Taiwan in other proposals, but the Taiwanese were having none of it.

After the visit, many political pundits thought that the St Lucian prime minister would punish the Taiwanese back for not helping funding his whatever-whatever-whatever. Given the Taiwanese aversion to Allen Chastanet’s UWP (to them, it’s the same as Stephenson King’s UWP) pundits surmised that Prime Minister Anthony had nothing to lose from giving the Taiwanese the finger on the yachting deal, joining the Red Cross, the Boy Scouts and whatever else they want to do reclaim incremental recognition as a nation.

However, Prime Minister Anthony stunned the nation and the world with his magnanimity and his focus on the economic well-being of the nation, saying: “While we have our differences in the past, there is no doubt that our co-operation in the present and in the future will be to the benefit of St Lucians. And that is my primary concern. That is why we have not wasted any time on this issue and have signed this deal with the Taiwanese with great speed, in spite of some ideological and political differences between us.”

Didier, for his part, is delighted that his tenure as a government consultant has borne fruit: “Dread, I get so vexed when people lump me in with all those consultants they say government is wasting money on. I’m so glad nobody can tell me that shate again.”

A NOTE FROM SPECIAL GUEST EDITOR, RICHARD FREDERICK:

This did not actually happen. Jason is smoking THAT CRACK again.

Prime Minister Anthony did, in fact, take Didier to Taiwan and did interest the Taiwanese in registering their yachts here.

The deal is, in fact, worth tens of millions a year, hundreds of millions less than five years and billions over the long term.

But when Jason Sifflet tells you the government has DONE ANYTHING to make this prospect a money-making reality, he is just revealing to everyone, HOW MUCH CRACK HE SMOKES.