Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell Wednesday continued his quest for re-election as his ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) move towards developing its manifesto ahead of the next general election constitutionally due no later than October 2027, but widely expected to be held before that date.
Mitchell, updating the media on the ‘People’s Manifesto’ his party’s novel grassroots strategy launched in July to have citizens directly help write its next election document, said voters will soon be able to see ‘ what is completed, what is in progress, and what is still to come or what requires attention.
‘How we will do this? We will create an online progress tracker with a dedicated website with the manifesto commitments for each constituency listed publicly, and the status of each commitment will be visible, whether it’s ongoing, completed’.
Mitchell said that there will be an annual community review, adding ‘we will return to our communities each year. We’ll report on what has been delivered. We will discuss what remains outstanding and naturally, we will give our residents the opportunity to hear directly from them in terms of what still requires attention.
‘It’s important for us to point out that to a large extent, the plan was shaped by our residents, and therefore, it is important for us to demonstrate in a transparent manner to our residents how the plan is being delivered.’
Mitchell told reporters that the ‘listening phase’ of developing the manifesto has been completed and that the return phase begins September 18 and ‘thereafter, implementation and accountability will continue after we’ve published 5 of these constituency manifestos.
‘So our residents, our citizens spoke. We listened. We have the plan, and it is time for us to reveal that plan and then naturally have the plan endorsed and then to begin the process of implementation,’Mitchell said.
Mitchell, who led the NDC to victory in 2022 after it won nine of the 15 seats at stake, said he remains confident that the voters would return the party back into power to carry out the ‘people’s manifesto.
‘… my position and I think it’s our position is that we offer to serve. We said what are the things we would do. We’ve stuck as much as we can to doing and accomplishing them. And we’ve done so in a manner respecting our citizens and always valuing their participation, their support and their criticism.
‘And therefore we are happy to continue serving. We are happy to have the public judges us and that’s what we think this election is about. We view it as to what the public has to tell us, whether they validate what we’ve done or not.
‘If they don’t, we know what the consequences will be. If they do, we also know what the consequences will be. But I will certainly say I think it’s been an amazing honour and perhaps unquestionably, I think I can speak on behalf of all of us, the greatest privilege of our life to serve the people of Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique,’ Mitchell said.
He told reporters that theparty would soon be finalising its slate of candiddates for the general election, adding ‘we’ve confirmed 12 of the 15 candidates. We expect that we’ll be confirming two more in the coming weeks.
‘So we intend to, we expect that we’ll wrap up and have our full slate ready by perhaps the end of next week,’ Mitchell said adding that the candidates will be made known when they are endorsed by the party.
Mitchell told reporters that a new NDC administration would lay much emphasis on transformation and modernising the country, acknowledging that funding would be a major aspect.
‘I say to people, you’re only as good as the resources you have. So we are quite clear that financing the state is, in a sense, the preeminent preoccupation that we have. But I think we also recognise there are things we can do better. So you always have to do more with less. So I think government efficiency is a key issue as well.’
He said that the second aspect is growing non-tax revenue.
‘Obviously, the main source of non-tax revenue has been the investment migration industry. But I think as a country, we have to think through innovative ways in which we can draw investment and non-tax revenue to Grenada.’
Mitchell said that the research being undertaken by the government is to identify what ‘would allow for growth in our non-tax revenue.
‘ We also think Grenada has an opportunity to become a financial hub.In the past, we think it was not done properly when you go back to things like trust services and offshore banking and so on, because a lot of the regulations that was required was not done properly.
‘I think we’ve learned from the investment migration industry that you can create innovative industries if they’re regulated properly, if the persons who are running them are professionals, if you ensure that you don’t have political interference.
‘So there’s an opportunity to build, we think, a financial sector services here. That is crucial. So we have to modernise the financial sector in Grenada, the banking and so on,’ Mitchell said, adding ‘there’s no investment banking, there’s no wealth management, those kinds of things.
‘There’s no trust and estate planning. So we think there are opportunities in the financial sector space for us to do that, but it also means we have to train more professionals in some of those areas,’ Mitchell said, adding that he would also emhasize the need to re-shape the education sector.
‘ So when we talk about things like the marine school, the intent is not to build some little shack type school where you just come and learn the basics. The idea is ultimately to position Grenada as a place where we can create highly trained, highly skilled persons that work in the marine space,’ he added.