26th January 2010
“A Lawless Country”
M.G. George

<< Chester Hinkson

When the newly elected president of Saint Lucia’s Chamber of Commerce, Chester Hinkson strode to the podium to deliver his speech at the Chamber’s annual awards ceremony Saturday night, no one expected him to take on the establishment. No one expected him to sock it to Saint Lucians making them understand they too have a significant role to play in promoting and sustaining a healthy political, economic and social environment.
Hinkson delivered the unexpected while Prime Minister Stephenson King looked on, making it clear that the Mission Statement of the Chamber cannot be accomplished in a country of lawlessness.
Seconds after expressing how honoured, privileged and humbled he felt standing before the Chamber’s members as their newly elected president, Hinkson then launched into reasons why the Chamber’s vision and goals for a better Saint Lucia can never be accomplished much less sustained if the country does not address the problems of lawlessness.
“We seem to think that correcting the ills of this country is the responsibility of the government only, not so…,” Hinkson said, adding that the question of crime, insecurity and lawlessness in Saint Lucia is the responsibility of every community – the church, the private sector, the public sector, the opposition, the mothers and fathers unions, civil service, in a nutshell, every Saint Lucian.
“It is important that we remember that no foreign investor will invest in a country where he or she does not feel safe, where his wife cannot freely walk the city streets,” Hinkson said.
Hinkson, who is also one of the top local bankers in Saint Lucia, pointed to the weakness of the local economy and the need for all Saint Lucians to do all in their power to protect the industry, which is a fragile and competitive one.
“Many of the developmental projects which were in the pipeline in Saint Lucia have either been cancelled or put on hold. To help mitigate the economic impact, we have been fortunate to see increase airlifts and an unprecedented influx of cruise ships in our harbor. As encouraging as this may seem, we stand the chance of losing that miniscule portion of our Caribbean market share.
“I say this so Saint Lucians understand how important it is for us to protect the market. Stop the tourist harassment and attacks. Get the vagrants, mentally challenged, and homeless off the streets. Find a home for the many stray dogs that roam the city and most importantly, clean the city, the once upon a time beautiful Castries has now become an unsightly flea market,” Hinkson said.
The Chamber’s new president said the time has come to stop talking and start acting because enough is enough. He then recounted the Fountain Valley murder in Saint Croix and the impact it has had and continues to have on that islands tourism industry.
“After more than 15 years Saint Croix is yet to recover from this senseless attack on its visitors. Is this what we are waiting for in Saint Lucia? Let me assure you that the problem we face with unlawfulness is perpetrated by only a small group of persons who are holding the entire country hostage,” Hinkson said.
He listed a few of the smaller infractions of the law that take place on a daily basis here and what he thinks are solutions to correct or curb them.
For instance, motorists throwing bottles out of the windows of their vehicles, engaging in unlawful parking, disregarding speed limits, causing accidents resulting in unnecessary loss of lives, blatantly disregarding traffic lights and totally disregarding and disrespecting police, with little being done to mitigate these concerns other than issuing the occasional ticket by a few traffic officers.
“Ask yourself when last has a perpetrator’s licence been suspended, whether temporarily or permanently? Fines imposed are sometimes never paid. Should we link the traffic department to the licencing office where motorists must go to renew their driver’s licences, revenues to be collected would increase fivefold,” Hinkson said.