Opposition Senator Delbert Paris has issued a strong call to the Government of Dominica to provide Dominicans with the opportunity to benefit from their own resources first. His call came while addressing Parliament last week where the government received approval from Parliament for a US$41 Million loan from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to fund the Roseau Enhancement Project.
According to him, any form of development in a country is a breath of fresh air and it’s necessary. Particularly sustainable development that touches all the people in the country at every level, focusing on areas to include; physical responsibility, the environment, health, the quality of life, and the standard of living of your people.
However, he said, “sometimes that is not what we see.”
“We cannot continue to turn our country and the young people of our country, a country filled with skills-set, a country filled with capacity and turn them into a bunch of hewers of wood and carriers of water for foreign agencies,” Paris stressed. “We have to find a way to put our people back to work, so that we do not sit by in our country and watch development happening and not be able to participate.”
He said locals must be empowered.
“If we have a problem with the locals we should empower them,” Paris encouraged. “We should help them to build themselves up, but more than that Mr. Speaker, while we have these projects going on we should partner them and pair them with these foreign agencies that we have to ensure they can learn and grow and make it a requirement, so that we do not use the excuse of incompetence to not empower our people.”
This he said is wrong, and whether loan money or CBI [Citizenship By Investment] money is being used, “Dominicans should benefit from their own resources first.”
Furthermore, he argued that the people of each constituency where projects are being implemented should know that they come first and the monies that their children have to pay back 28 years later, “they themselves would have benefited from it now.”
He said these constituents should also be able to financially improve themselves and their families.
“Not just to see the building and to go there, but they would be able to financially improve themselves, empowering themselves and their children to make sure that when the debt is called that we will not be able to default, because we have empowered ourselves during these development processes,” Paris noted. “That is not what we are seeing in recent times.”
He added, “And it must not be at the lowest level possible, it can be at the highest levels too because Dominicans have the capacity to participate in the building of their own country. We have done it before and yes, it is modern times, so help them to grow.”
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” Dominicans should benefit from their own resources”
Own resources means income generated by own economic activities!
Now, natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest, and cultural value. On Earth, it includes sunlight, atmosphere, water, land, all minerals along with all vegetation, and wildlife.
Natural resources are part of humanity’s natural heritage or protected in nature reserves. Particular areas such as the rainforest often feature biodiversity and geo-diversity in their ecosystems. Natural resources may be classified in different ways. Natural resources are materials and components; something that can be used that can be found within the environment. Every man-made product is composed of natural resources at its fundamental level.
Difficult to understand Delbert’s rhetoric!
“According to him, any form of development in a country is a breath of fresh air and it’s necessary.”
Delbert, I believe you need to think of what you are about to convey, and choose your words more carefully; it is foolish to contend that any form or suggested, or development is necessary!
You might be enthusiastic about Roosevelt borrowing money from the Saudi’s; but as far as I see you have not taken into consideration the nonsense Roosevelt said he wants the money for; and so I would like you to answer just a couple of questions.
. Do you know what is a bowling alley have you ever been into one
. Do you know the purpose of a theater
. Have you ever entered or visited a modern day theater
. Do you believe that this latest fantasy of Roosevelt can create sustainable
employment, and for how many people
This might sound stupid; but I agree with the author: “You need to go boss. Go join Skerrit and his evil team. You guys are weak and not real so you and Jasma should…
You need to go boss. Go join Skerrit and his evil team. You guys are weak and not real so you and Jasma should go!
I Agree 100%
Senator, you are absolutely correct in saying that Dominican workers should receive priority and be involved in any projects taking place on island. However, they have to be competitive. The name of the game is ECONOMICS. You cannot price yourself out of a project and expect employment. We need to be honest here. The work ethics on Island requires a serious overhaul, high pricing for very little “mediocre” work. We are not doing anymore any favors by pretending that all is well with the quality and output of work by our service providers. I believe there lies the problem. These contractors are used to certain standards and will not accept anything less since their reputation is what is at stake here. Improve your overall standard and make your claim for inclusion.
Yes i agree, however, when project of national interest are simply given to chinese and arabs without ANY public tendor process, how will we ever even know if a local firm or a regional firm can do more for Dominica with much less. airport, goodwill school projects. i saw no tendor. but just heard one day, chinese building it or montreal management and anthony hayden building it. that it undermining the public procurement process.
I am all in on the bidding process but based on personal experience, it may not be necessary to obtain bids on every project since one might already have the history of a certain contracting company. For example, we (procurement dept) used to award work to one company for five years based on our previous interaction (bidding) meaning, they would perform all company work for the next five years without us having to request an outside bid. We already knew their cost structure therefore all they did was invoice us and we paid their invoice.
At the five year mark, we would again solicit bids on the open market, select a new vendor, sometimes keep the existing company and award them a contract for five years.
My point is, if you’re satisfied with a company’s overall performance, it is not necessary to secure bids for each and every project. However, I would make sure that locals got a chance to participate in the projects if they were reliable, efficient and cost effective.
I hope that Dominica will be the strongest country and the most beautiful country, and we have contributed to building Dominica, and I hope that it will be the best country in the world and will not need to borrow from any country. In my personal opinion, a chance must be given to new leadership in Dominica – Dominicans abroad.
Paris has said all the right words, but the Government already empowers locals through free education and training, free capital, concessional capital, free technical support, tendered jobs (where necessary), etc.
There is a bigger problem that Paris and no other public official seems to publicly admit though: Too many Dominican workers shoot themselves in the foot with their atrocious work ethic, overly exorbitant rates, poor financial management, limited capital, and often average work performance. Facts are facts, there are too few locals who actually qualify for many of those mega projects; even his dad’s company would struggle to raise the capital to gain an advantage in an open tender competition.