Let me begin by saying how happy I am as always to be in the nation’s capital. I came over on Saturday for my Aunt Sarah’s funeral and had the opportunity to worship yesterday at her beloved Salem Baptist Church.
I also want to apologize to your listeners, many of whom expected me to be here on Friday. My difficulty was that I had a campaign meeting in North Caicos on Thursday night and I just couldn’t get back to Providenciales and then to Grand Turk in time to make the show. I hope to be able to make up for the disappointment by what I say today. I will try to be as brief as I can to give your listeners as much time as possible to call in with their questions and comments.
We live in very perilous times and the people have being crying out for a Leader to match these times. Well look no further. You have found him and his name is Carlos Simons, born in Salt Cay, grew up in Grand Turk, educated in Britain and lives in Provo. I’ve walked with kings and princess but prefer the company and the struggles of the common folks. The search for your leader is over. If you will have me, I am your man!
The times are perilous because the British have made them so. I cannot possibly condense the sins of the British into this brief statement. But I will do my best to mention those I believe are the most egregious.
I will begin with the SIPT and the so called Civil Recovery Team. Now here we have a situation in which the British Government is forcing us to pay millions of dollars to Helen Garlic and their other lawyers to investigate so called crimes that were committed on their watch and to recover land, every acre of which was doled out over the signature of their Governor. At the same time as we are paying these millions of dollars to Helen Garlic and other British Government lawyers, public servants and others are being laid off and the people of Grand Turk have to line up at the public tank with buckets for water.
Now just ask yourself, what is wrong with that picture? And the answer is everything. Everything. On the one hand they are terrorizing and traumatizing our own people with our own money and on the other hand they are driving the rest of us into poverty. It is morally wrong. The only reason it is not legally wrong is because the British have made the laws.
They call it the SIPT. But it’s really nothing more than a gravy train. Its name ought to be the GTMT- The Garlic Time and Money Team. But I promise you this- the day I take office is the day Helen Garlic gets laid off. That gravy train they’re riding will not just be stopped; it will be brought to a screeching halt. I will not spend on dime, no not one dime of TCI taxpayers’ money on Helen Garlic. The events they are investigating took place under the watchful eye of their Governor, the investigation was recommended by their Commissioner, it is being conducted by their lawyers, applying laws that they themselves have recently made. But it’s all being paid for with our money. That is not justice and I will see justice done or I will die in the process.
So the day I take office, I will be saying to the British Government is relation to Helen Garlic, not in my name and not on my dime. You hired her, you pay her. Otherwise she can pack her bags and go home. I just don’t roll like that.
Imagine issuing an international police warrant with our money as though they’re hunting some kind of genocidal maniac and as though they had nothing to do with the circumstances. It is an affront to this Country as a whole. I call upon the Governor to rescind that warrant today. If he does not I will the day I take office. That is how I roll.
Now the second money matter I will address is the loan of $260 million that the British Government has borrowed in our name and intend to leave on our books for our children and our grandchildren to pay back. They have also declared their intention to stick around and hold on to the purse strings until that is done. That is also morally wrong. The only reason it is not legally wrong is because again the British have made the laws. But mark my words, it will not stand. I will not have it. It is unjust and I will see justice done or I will see die in the process. Just as the need for the SIPT arose because of British negligence, so too the need for this loan. I will not have generations of TCI taxpayers pick up the tab for the incompetence of third rate British administrators. It just is not right and something has to be done about it and I will.
I cannot end without mentioning the National Insurance Fund. Now here you have a situation in which the British Government have come in, they sweep away our constitution and they say in order to get it back you have to meet these milestones. One of those milestones is a balanced budget. Now we can’t meet that milestone because they’re paying the Garlic Time and Money Team all the money. So what does the Governor do? Well he wakes up one morning and he says to himself “you know there is a whole pot full of money down there in the National Insurance Building; I think I’ll just have that”. But the Chairman and Directors of the National Insurance Board say no, no it don’t work like that. Here’s how the law says it should go. But the Governor, behaving like the King he apparently thinks he is says ok, I’ll make a new law and take the money anyway. So he does exactly that. Now what kind of example does that set for the next elected Government? A very bad one and one that ought not to be followed. And because it sets such a bad example when I become the next leader of the Progressive National Party, as I will be and the next Premier of this country, as I will be, I will not let it happen. I just will not let it happen. I will send the Garlic Time and Money Team home and I will balance the budget.
Now, I can speak with the authority that I do because I know my party is behind me. We recently passed a resolution making it a policy objective of the Party to prepare the country for independence. I consider myself to be bound by that resolution. I also consider that it gives me a mandate to say to the British you will treat us fairly and with respect or you can pack up and go home.
But make no mistake, that is going to be a long and difficult fight, involving complex legal issues that I am best equipped to deal with. In doing so I am confident that not only will my Party be behind me in that fight, but after the general election campaign which will see us win back the Government, the people of the TCI will be behind me as well and we will begin to restore to ourselves our dignity, our self-respect, our good name and we will say to the British with one voice, never again, no never again! If you can’t help just get out of our way.
Now how do I know the PNP will win the general elections, for me be in a position to deliver? Well I know that because there is no one on the other side whether he lives in Waterloo or in the South Back Salina, there is no one on the other side who is any match for me!
Now Mr. Hall, as you and your listeners know, I am currently campaigning for the leadership of my Party. My competitor is a bright, well-spoken, charismatic young man with fire in his belly – all good qualities. For those and other reasons, which I understand, he does have some support among Party delegates.
But I want to take this opportunity to tell those delegates who don’t quite understand the seriousness of the time we live in, what they ought to be looking for in the next Leader of our Party, and the next Premier of our country – experience, maturity, stability, standing and reputation, commitment and the ability to deliver. The ability to make the case for the TCI, both legally and otherwise, and to press that case in whatever forum it needs to be taken, whether to the FCO in London or to the United Nations in New York; and when he gets there, to be able to look across the table at whoever is seated there secure in the knowledge that he is their equal!
I can say, without fear of contradiction, I have those qualities in greater measure than anyone who is currently in the leadership race or who might be thinking about it. I was the PNP elected member for Salt Cay from 1985 to 1988. I subsequently served another term in the House of Assembly as the Governor’s appointed member. I was closely involved in three constitutional changes in the TCI – 1988, 1983 and 2006. I was in London with the former Premier Michael Misick and the Minister Jeffrey Hall to negotiate the final details of the 2006 Constitution.
Outside of Government, I have served as Chairman of the Public Service Commission, Chairman of the National Insurance Tribunal, I was a founding member of the National Insurance Board of Directors and the first Chairman of the Community College Board of Governors. And twice the President of the Bar Council. Like one Party delegate put it in introducing me in North Caicos last Thursday night “he is no small fry”.
So I say to our Party delegates, don’t sell our Party short, don’t sell our country short, the choice is obvious, do the right thing. I cannot speak more plainly than that, do the right thing for our Party and for our Country.
