Is King taking Taiwanese generosity for granted?
Ambassador Tom Chou took the media on a tour of the Mental Welllness Center this week. He held up his end of the deal but why hasn’t PM King delivered on his?
Five million US in investment just to finish the buildings! Even more to furnish them and upgrade security systems, safety features and emergency communications. The Taiwanese have gone above and beyond their part of the deal in making sure that the much-vaunted St Lucia Mental Wellness Center—started and abandoned by the Chinese—is finished and functional.As the Mental Wellness Center approaches something resembling completion, the Taiwanese assistance team has reason to be proud of their work. They kept their part of the rescue deal and delivered on a promise that many said was nothing more than comfort to a fool. Few expected them to come this far. Many expected that the hospital project would remain a ruinous reminder of the days when Beijing brought big projects like stadia to the island, instead of the comparative small fry that Taiwanese diplomacy can afford.
The obstacles were even greater than their critics would have wished on them. And they did it all in primitive conditions, without running water and electricity from the main grid.
“In fact, the power we have here today is coming from a generator,” Taiwanese ambassador Tom Chou told the press, behind an inscrutable face.
Ambassador Chou said a lot simply by mentioning the failure of LUCELEC to provide the compound with electricity during the construction process. The construction team of St Lucians and Taiwanese were forced to forge ahead powering equipment with generators to prevent further delays (and cost overruns?) in the already controversial project. The last thing the Taiwanese wanted, once they signed on to finish the hospitals that Beijing started was for the project to become yet another lightning rod for criticism of the current government and their relationship with Taipei.
But somehow, LUCELEC never quite got the message and apparently no one in the present government had what it would take to get electrical contractors moving to light up the showpiece of the government’s relationship with Taiwan.
Ambassador Chou refrained from criticizing LUCELEC for the frustrations caused, but of course, everyone knew that the buck stopped at the desk of LUCELEC’s main shareholder and the hospital’s number one political beneficiary.
Ambassador Chou said a lot when he mentioned the construction team’s frustrations with the electricity company, but he could have said a lot more.
He could have said that while the Taiwanese kept their end of the bargain and more, the government has yet to honour its own related commitments without which the Wellness Center cannot open.
The Wellness Center is an idea that was supposed to make the new mental hospital more than just another nuthouse. Under the old deal with red China, the Chinese would build the buildings and government would undertake the rest of the expenses, including building retaining walls, securing and stabilizing the environment, procuring equipment and little things like outfitting the laundry and the kitchens.
The Taiwanese, when they took over, undertook to secure and stabilize the grounds, as well as finish the construction work on the buildings. They went further and procured furniture and upgraded the safety features and security and emergency communications systems at the facility. All of which left the government relatively little to do to get the center up and running.
What is it that is so difficult for the government to get done?
The government’s part of the deal is to procure the equipment necessary to make departments like Gynecology, Geriatrics and Radiology real and functional. Compared to the US$5 million-plus investment by the Taiwanese, the local government’s end of the deal is small—a mere $1.5 million according to their own estimates.
But government has only just begun to explore possible sources where $1.5 million might come from. There was no line item in last year’s budget about how to pay for government’s part in the wellness center. Without it, the center is just a world class asylum, not at all the ‘brand new concept’ that the government promised.
The Taiwanese had hoped they would be opening the wellness center by now. But with no strong positive indication of government’s determination to procure the needed equipment to outfit even the laundry and the kitchens, it seems the ruling party’s best friend may have elected to wash its hands of the Mental Wellness Center and hand it over to the St Lucian government before it becomes a lightning rod for opposition criticism all over again. Hence, the “media site visit” and next week’s “handing over ceremony”.
It turns out that the Taiwanese have wrote letters to LUCELEC and to the government, urging them both on numerous occasions to do what was necessary to make the opening of the wellness center possible. Officials of the embassy refuse to confirm, of course, but sources close to Cabinet have.
The Taiwanese must be somewhat disappointed to have to hand over the project without being able to boast of its opening. The mental hospital and general hospital were two of the projects that attracted the most negative attention to the Taiwanese Embassy. Many St Lucians thought that the hospital projects were reason enough to maintain relations with Beijing.
Finishing the wellness center is the biggest belelesh that the Taiwanese can inflict on their critics. It would eclipse the restoration of the George Odlum Stadium. It would have a wider and more immediate impact than many of the agricultural projects that are the hallmark of Taiwanese assistance. And most importantly, it might persuade some of Taiwanese knee-jerk critics that Taiwan can contribute to major capital projects as well as grassroots projects.
But unless the government can prove that its commitment is a lot more than lip service, the Taiwanese may soon have to admit that their best friends on the island are unworthy of their generosity.