NRP outlines blueprint to slash unemployment
THE NEVIS REFORMATION PARTY (NRP) HAS UNVEILED ECONOMIC PLANS TO HELP SLASH UNEMPLOYMENT pegged at a staggering 35 percent in the island due to closure of several firms and lack of new investments.
NRP leader, Dr Janice Daniel-Hodge, contesting next Monday’s polls to topple two-term Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) leader Mark Brantley, to become the first female Premier, wants to reverse this trend when her party takes over.
Daniel-Hodge sees abundant opportunities available in the country for a thriving manufacturing sector.
“When we look at the mangoes and all the fruits that go to waste in Nevis, the CCM government…cannot come up with a plan as to how we can convert these fruits that are going to waste into employment opportunities for our youths,” the NRP leader observed.
“We need to develop mango industry here…where everybody who has mango tree in their yard can bring their produce to this facility, get paid for it, and we process those mangoes into various products such as mango wine, mango cake, mango bread and mango jam,” she counselled.
Daniel-Hodge is the daughter of Nevis’ first Premier, Sir Simon Daniel, and speaking at a campaign rally Tuesday night, she told jubilant supporters the NRP economic initiatives have been well thought out and will be executed immediately upon after taking office.
“You must create an industry… and conceptualise how this is going to feed into your tourism product. It’s not just having two mangoes and making products. You must understand that we have this facility, and we have tourists coming and they want to go someplace that is unique; some place that they will get the products that they will not get (at home), these are the thigs that we want to do.”
“We are not just doing it because we want to have these attractions for tourists, we are doing it because this is a way to create jobs for our people. Imagine, within that mango industry you have your marketing department, you have your accounting department, your packaging department all of these different departments, so when those on the other side say we already have a mango processing at Prospects I say yes, but we have to create jobs for our people and that is one way that we can do it,’ she explained in her campaign address
Helping reduce high unemployment can also be achieved by tapping into the country’s other forms of natural resources, and maximising opportunities in the recycling industry.
“When we look at our guts (drains) on the roadside, we see them being cleaned, but the plastic bottles and all the garbage stay there. We need to be able to develop an island beautification programme where we take pride in our island and so we clean the guts, we clean thee roadside, we create jobs for people” by doing that, she explained.
“When you go to our beaches do you see any nice groom shade trees where you can sit? Do you see any nice benches and picnic tables” These are the things that create jobs for people, and it beautifies our island at the same time, and so when we speak about natural resources and what we want to do it is also centered around our people and creating jobs for them,” Daniel-Hodge elaborated.
She explained further: “So, every beach in Nevis will have people assigned to them so that the beaches can be kept clean and there are many people who like these kinds of jobs.”
Regarding sargassum and the challengers facing fishers, Daniel-Hodge again pointed to revenue-generating and job-creation opportunities for Nevisians.
“Over at Indian Castle there is a big problem with sargassum and the fishers’ struggle. The number of days that they can go out and fish is so much less because sometimes the sargassum is so thick that they cannot go out. Now if we speak about food security, and we want to improve the livelihood of our fishers, there is the opportunity too hire someone to put there to ensure that the fishers can go in and out (easily)
Barbados, she said, is converting their sargassum it into biofuel, and Nevis can do the same.
“If we cannot develop the facility here, we negotiate with Barbados, she counselled.
She said Charlestown can send its sargassum to Bridgetown “when our containers come rather than going back empty. We capitalise on the things that we can do.”
“The opportunities are many but we must understand what is required,” Daniel-Hodge counselled.
