Michelle Loubon

Point Fortin MP Paula Gopee-Scoon queries whether St Vin­cent and the Grenadines is­land is not wor­thy of as­sis­tance from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­ter hur­ri­cane Tomas struck.

She made this com­ment in light of Per­sad- Bisses­sar's vis­it to St Lu­cia–led by Stephen­son King. Yes­ter­day, Gopee-Scoon said: "It begs the ques­tion: Why Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not see it fit to vis­it St Vin­cent and the Grenadines (Dr Ralph Gon­za­lves) whose sit­u­a­tion is just as pre­car­i­ous as St Lu­cia?

"Sure­ly they would have wel­comed her vis­it. Are there po­lit­i­cal con­no­ta­tions to help­ing one Cari­com coun­try against the oth­er."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar's vis­it to St Lu­cia last Fri­day, she said, "is recog­nised, though late, it was." She added: "Sure­ly, the very large en­tourage of busi­ness­men and me­dia in­clud­ed would now ac­knowl­edge the se­ri­ous blow in­flict­ed on St Vin­cent and its ef­fect on the ba­nana and tourism in­dus­tries." She paint­ed a grim pic­ture of "hun­dreds of per­sons still liv­ing in shel­ters. Pow­er has not been ful­ly re­stored. Wa­ter re­mains an emer­gency. Gon­salves said the is­land's ca­pac­i­ty to re­bound in a rea­son­able time frame is oner­ous."

Gon­salves: No com­ment on T&T PM's de­ci­sion

In­ter­viewed yes­ter­day, Gon­salves said: "We have be­gun the process of re­con­struc­tion and re­build­ing. I am in Park Hill in my con­stituen­cy." He re­fused to com­ment on Per­sad-Bisses­sar's de­ci­sion.