Part 5 on why I can't vote UPP

Just to recap I posted four blogs over the past 36 hours which got a huge amount of interest mainly because people either didn't know or they had forgotten the things I wrote about. Entitled "Where my tax money has gone over the past 10 years." the four parts are as follows:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

I should have spoken more about The North East Marine Management Area (NEMMA) in part 4. Again a huge missed opportunity, waste of money and more example of a lack of vision and leadership. Our marine park still doesn't have any visible management at all apart from the mooring balls which were set without a plan to use them, manage them or maintain them. The high end patrol boat that they got in the international funding that went along with the project still isn't being used. The entire thing is a mess and a huge disappointment to me especially after I have visited the other Caribbean parks set up with the same international funding. Again, Hilson Baptiste is one of the main looooooosers to blame but it can't rest solely on his shoulders. PM Spencer and the rest of his gang failed with this opportunity. Read more about it on this October 2009 blog. Read more here. 

Sand Mining is another maddening thing that would make me not want to vote for them.  It's not just sand mining on a commercial scale that we see in Barbuda. I mean that's bad enough especially since the UPP boys and girls criticized it for years when the old ALP did it. Of course as soon as they got in they not only kept it going but UPPed production. Quite a few ministers made big money with Barbuda sand. What bothers me as much or more is that so many prized beaches are damaged weekly with mining while the UPP government does nothing. Read here for more about that. I visit beaches that ministers in the UPP government swim at in the afternoons and see them walk right past big holed in the beach where people regularly take buckets of sand. Jabbawock is the worst example of this. You think anything has been done by these guys to protect these beaches, our most valuable assets? NADA and that's another reason they have to go!

Speaking of beaches, sand and by extension reefs. Remember what is happening to parrot fish? The most important fish in our waters has been the one most heavily targeted. While other Caribbean islands take measures to protect this critical reef species and sand producer, the UPP governent has encouraged and facilitated their destruction. While there are few people in Fisheries and the Environment Division who don't agree that the parrotfish needs protection, Fisheries still facilitated the export of thousands of pounds a week of netted parrot fish. Bad leadership! Read more here.
and more here.


It's a waste of time to go on and on, but there are way too many examples of bad decision making and mismanagement of our resources including tax moneys. Ten years was long enough for them to get their stuff together. I am voting against them in the hope that they will go away, think about their failures and come back again as a better party.