A river runs through it… Argyle Airport runway, that is!

Yambou River and mud in the middle of Argyle Airport runway

submitted by the SVG Green Party

If anyone tells you that aircraft will land at Argyle in 2015, then that person is lying to you. The middle of the Argyle airport runway is a river and a muddy wasteland. The Argyle airport will take at least four more years, and even then, it will not be a functioning airport.

Since 2006, we have been bombarded with ULP regime nonsense about how the Argyle airport will boost the economy, but the reality is Argyle has been a curse to our country. Throughout SVG, towns, villages and communities have been starved of jobs and money, all for the sake of building Argyle airport for tourists.

From Fancy to Fitzhughes, Union Island and beyond, the needs of Vincentians have been ignored. Hospitals have fallen to ruin, the economy is virtually dead and the country is littered with tombs that once used to be flourishing businesses. The consequence has been high unemployment, high crime, destitution and poverty.
Vincentians have been made to suffer under the economic delusion that tourism and the Argyle Airport will bring prosperity. Well, they will not.

Having an airport does not guarantee prosperity. Barbados has had an international airport since 1938 and tourism for over 60 years, yet Barbados laid-off 3,000 government workers in 2013 and rolled out yet another national poverty alleviation programme a few years previous.

We have been lied to time and again, being told that Argyle airport will be finished in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. One need only look at the muddy mess at Argyle to know that it will not be finished in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 or 2019.

The Yambou River is yet to be culverted; there is a mountain of mud in the middle of the runway area; the northern end of the runway is just mud and is being washed away by the sea; and, the cliff at Peruvian Vale village impedes final approach to the runway and will need to be knocked down and cleared away.