Can we stop dancing around the truth. Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration claim it generated EC$405.5 million, roughly one-third of the national budget in new revenue last year, but they cannot explain why teachers are being forced to take industrial action because their salaries were not paid for January. This is not a minor administrative delay. This is continued hard evidence of financial distress at the core of Roosevelt Skerrit’s administration.
Teachers at Saint Mary Academy, along with educators at assisted schools across Dominica, have been left unpaid for January. These are salaried professionals whose payments, by Roosevelt Skerrit’s own administration, admits the payments have been delayed consistently since 2018. Principals are now reduced to chasing cheques at the Treasury, being told they are unprepared or unsigned. That is not what a solvent government looks like.
If Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration truly gained one-third of the national budget in new revenue last year, teachers would be paid on time – automatically, predictably, without protest.
Governments flush with cash, do not normalize last-minute payments or post-month disbursements. They do not allow our educators to miss loan repayments and incur penalties while officials falsely boast on the DBS radio about prosperity in the tourism industry.
This situation is proof of something far more serious: Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration, and our country, have run out of money. This si not hypothetically. Not in the future. Now.
You cannot claim a tourism boom while failing to meet fixed, recurring obligations, such as salaries. Tourism revenue, if it was real, is liquid. It moves monthly. It shows up immediately. And yet, when it comes time to pay our teachers, the money is suddenly missing. Roosevelt Skerrit and his administartions contradictions exposes the lie.
And at the center of this charade is The Ministry of Tourism, Denise Charles, who is paid to mislead the public, spinning false narratives to make her “friend” Roosevelt Skerrit’s failures appear as victories.
Denise Charles and Roosevelt Skerrit want Dominicans to believe tourism has delivered historic gains. But reality tells a different story. The planes are empty. The buses are empty. The streets of Roseau are quiet. Businesses feel it. Workers feel it. And now teachers feel it directly in their bank accounts. This is what fabricated growth and deliberate lies look like when they collide with real obligations.
And what do you think comes next? Another “gift,” or shall we call it what it is, a loan from China. Just another reason for us to become more dependent on a dictator and his authoritarian rule. Oh, did you think we were talking about China? No, Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration.
Even more troubling is the role of DBS Radio. Instead of asking the obvious questions – Where is the money? Why are teachers unpaid? How can a government claiming record revenue, miss payroll?
DBS repeats government claims as if they are verified facts. That is not journalism. That is running interference for a government under financial strain. This is no longer about politics or party loyalty. It is about arithmetic and accountability. A government claiming to have added one-third of free monwey to the national budget cannot plead administrative delay when salaries are due.
That excuse can only exist when the cash is not there. The teachers of Saint Mary Academy have exposed the truth without intending to. Their protest is not just about fairness or equity; it is a financial alarm bell. Our people, our country is being told one story, while reality tells another. And reality is winning.
Dominica’s decades of tourism failure are not an accident. It is the result of poor leadership, misplaced priorities, and a system designed to reward appearances over results. And it is long past time for our people to see through the lies and replace this administration with one that works for Dominica, and not the fantasy they want us to believe exists.
If Dominicans want this to end, there is only one political force willing and able to end it. Not because we promise favours. Not because we trade loyalty for handouts. But because we are not in politics for the money.
The Dominica Reform Party does not benefit from inflated numbers, phantom growth, or fake prosperity. We gain nothing from lies. In fact, the system as it exists works against us – because we refuse to participate in corruption, propaganda, or manufactured success.
Your success, is our success, not a revenue stream for politicians, not a headline to be exploited, not a statistic to be abused. That is the fundamental difference.
Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration must lie because it depends on the lie to survive. It must exaggerate tourism because the money is not there. It must punish truth-tellers because truth exposes insolvency. It must lean on friendly media because accountability would collapse the entire narrative.
The Dominica Reform Party has no such dependency. We will not pretend Dominica is thriving while teachers go unpaid. We will not invent revenue while public servants chase cheques. We will not gaslight the population into doubting their own lived reality. We believe in something radical: if Dominicans succeed, Dominica succeeds. Full stop.
- When teachers are paid on time, that is success.
- When businesses are busy, that is success.
- When planes are full because people actually want to come here, not because Denise Charles said so – that is success.
And unlike Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration, we are prepared to govern based on reality, not radio scripts. This crisis – unpaid teachers, empty streets, missing money is not a glitch. It is the inevitable result of a system built on self-interest, secrecy, and spin. Ending it requires more than new faces. It requires a complete break from politics as a personal business model.
That break is the Dominica Reform Party.
- No lies.
- No interference.
- No pretending.
Just truth, accountability, and a government that understands one simple principle: We work for you – not the other way around.
So the next time you feel the urge to criticize me or the Dominica Reform Party, about the way we run our campaign, the tone we use, or to spew recycled nonsense – do everyone a favour and turn 180 degrees. Take that same energy, that same scrutiny, and apply it where it actually belongs.
Apply it to Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration, with decades of documented failure.
Apply it to Thomson Fontaine, who now recycles and repackages failure, or ideas he steals from us, ideas he did not create and did not lead with.
Apply it to Joshua Francis, whose silence on everything relevant on social media speaks louder than any speech he could give.
We are not in power. We do not control the treasury. We do not have a track record of broken promises, unpaid teachers, empty economies, or manufactured statistics. They do.
We are the only political voice in Dominica without a proven history of failure and that is exactly why they fear us. That is why they copy us. That is why they try to ignore us instead of debating ideas. It is easier to punch down at a reform movement than to explain decades of incompetence.
Criticizing the Dominica Reform Party while giving a free pass to those who have already failed our country is not “balanced.” It is cowardice disguised as commentary.
We are not asking for blind loyalty. We are asking for honesty. If you are serious about accountability, start with the people who have had power, money, and opportunity and squandered all three.
Until then, remember this:
- We are not the problem.
- We are not the past.
- We are the only voice they cannot control and the one they are scrambling to imitate.
And that tells you everything you need to know.
