HOW KENNY'S STD Corporation IS KILLING SOUTHERN TOURISM

Part of an ongoing investigation into

THE GHOST OF THE NEW FRONTIER



Oh dammit! Now I'm getting FLOGGed for doing NOTHING AT ALL...

 

It is one of the most influential statutory corporations in the island since its inception more than a decade ago. Every other statutory corporation seems to have learnt something from the Southern Tourism Development Corporation. In fact, STD Corp’s modus operandi seems to be infectious.

And yet, it does almost nothing. A few seminars here and there over the years. Nothing comes of them. Vieux Fort has benefitted no a jot from STD Corps annual government subvention. In fact, since the STD Corp was founded, the tourism plant in Vieux Fort has had herpes. Or rather, deteriorated to the point where most tourist and tour operators treat Vieux Fort like it has herpes. No one wants to go to bed with it.

The STD Corp was supposed to rescue Vieux Fort.

Instead, it is digging its grave.

THE HERPES THAT IS SOUTHERN TOURISM

It looks like money, smells like money, tastes like money...But it's not money. It's just Kenny Anthony's Vieux Fort.

 

In the 1990s, the dream of Vieux Fort was to become a modern beach front at both its major beaches. At the time, St Lucia had the money, the momentum, the will and the investors to make that happen.

By now, most of the things that are in St Lucia’s quadrant development plan for Vieux Fort should have been achieved. After all, most of them predated the plan by at least a decade.

None of them have come to pass.

And things about southern tourism that worked before STD Corp came on the scene no longer work. It is as though Vieux Fort was pregnant with southern tourism and instead of delivering the baby, STD Corp aborted it.

What's left are the herpes sores of the good times before STD Corp. promised to turn southern tourism into an economic orgy.

Il Pirata used to be a cute little guest house by the beach that symbolized the potential of Vieux Fort. It still does. It is broken down beyond repair, not even fit for crackheads to shelter from the rain. (Although it does have a storage space for the Vieux Fort quarry, of all things. How did that happen? Who’s brilliant idea was that?)

The Skyway Inn, once the morning star of southern tourism, has closed down. There are cottages associated with the Inn that still operate, but the Inn itself hardly even caters local events anymore.

Juliet’s Lodge has been closed since the time that girl was electrocuted there.

Sandy Beach has been closed for about nine months. It was the mother of all things at Anse du Sable and the new generation actually call the beach by the name of the establishment. But NDC has refused to give the lease holder permission to rent the property to another person. They want it back and they want it for less than market value. They are willing to just wait until the lease expires on the lease holder to simply disenfranchise him. The lease holder is Cass Elias, a former ambassador, MP and government minister for the St Lucia Labour Party. If they’re going to do that to him, who won’t they do it to?

For the last decade, there has been no serious injection of capital into Vieux Fort. The National Development Corporation was supposed to be engaged in a land reform project that should have helped spark off development. Instead, they have been selling off the assets in the south to pay for their debts.

As for Kenny Anthony’s first southern land reform authority, which would free VF from NDC’s mad tyranny, the last UWP government scrapped that. Kenny hasn’t seen fit to re-establish it.

And Black Bay?

Flambeau's Rochamel: The sign should read, "Land for Free, Millionaires Only!"

 

Everyone knows the tragi-comedy of the land that the UWP gave away free to an investor, who then deliberately went ‘broke’ pocketing millions, while the Labour government was left forking out millions to buy back land that the country owned.

It was Flambeau’s Rochamel, except that Labour had to pay for it. Which, I guess, makes it all the worse for both of them. More like syphilis than herpes really, because the longer you think about it, the more it makes you bind with anger.

What does the STD Corp say about its reputation for doing nothing? The Chairman under Flambeau, Wayne Harrow, confirmed that it had done nothing, three years into its term.

The people who wasted the government subventions before him and after him cannot disagree. whether Flambeau or Labour, they are no different.

It was not just a condemnation of Labour's STD, but of his own STD chairmanship. It was also a prophecy about the current board, which followed Harrow after Flambeau impaled itself in the 2011 election. Whether under Flambeau or Labour, the STD Corp consistently does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to rescue the south's fragile, fledgling tourism plant.

Now, southerners from Micoud to Laborie have lost faith in the STD Corp. and it's political masters. They are forming new alliance between themselves in the hopes of reviving what they built before Kenny Anthony's STD Corp. got involved.

How long before they lose faith in STD Corp's creator Kenny Anthony?

Or is that already a redundant question?