Suffer Not the Children
Spiraling food prices continue to affect the region with especially negative consequences for children.
One veteran educator says he shared Prime Minster Stephenson King's concern regarding the Common External Tariff (CET).
Sylvester Phillip is the Principal of the Roseau Combined School.
"The Roseau Combined School would like to express concern about the food problem facing the Caribbean Region and indeed St. Lucia. I would like to support the call by the Prime Minister for the waver of the CET to allow St. Lucia to buy food, particularly staples, from outside of the region, in order to feed the nation. Information reaching us suggests that Guyana, our sister Caribbean island, is selling her rice and sugar to the European Union, fetching a higher price for those commodities, to the deprivation of her sister islands."
When asked what prompted this reaction from the school, Mr. Phillip said these concerns did not reflect his own personal interests.
He says it is a plea on behalf of St. Lucia's marginalized youth.
"Already the unit of the Ministry of Education responsible for the School Feeding Programme was unable to send brown sugar for the third term because of severe shortages. We cannot wait until the situation reaches crisis proportions for us to act. In the end, the children of the poor and dispossessed, those participants of the School Feeding Programme throughout the nation would be the ones most affected by the prolonged shortages in food staples which they so heavily depend on. We need to act now. We need to waver the tariff and identify new sources for the purchase of survival commodities."