by Kevon Browne
St. Kitts and Nevis (WINN)—Premier of Nevis, Hon. Mark Brantley, recently defended his administration’s significant capital investments, pushing back against critics who argue that the Nevis Island Administration (NIA) prioritises heavy physical infrastructure at the expense of social sectors.
During a recent broadcast of his ‘On The Mark’ show, Brantley frames these massive construction and public works projects as the foundational “catalysts” required to spark broader economic growth, diversify away from declining revenues, and ultimately fund public welfare.
“The development that we have done is for the benefit of the people of Nevis. Any country anywhere in the world develops roads, water, infrastructure, electricity for their people. The development of infrastructure is also important for investment to come, any investment. So whether it is, as some of the discussions we are now having, with other investors to come in, your ability to provide water and roads and electricity is also important to them. But you do the development of your infrastructure first and foremost for your people. The people who are here enjoying water 24-7 in the worst drought we have had are not Destiny; it’s the people of Hanley’s Road and Cotton Ground and Barnes Gut and Brick Hill. So the development of infrastructure and the capacity of your infrastructure might be a factor that would attract investors, but you develop infrastructure for the benefit of your people.”
However, the Premier indicated in a recent press conference that investment in the people of Nevis is also a priority.
“If I understand you correctly, really to develop our people, and I think the answer to that is that we are really trying to do so through education and more education. We are trying to encourage our youngsters to take advantage of scholarship opportunities. The government itself has, since I’ve been Premier, we have assisted well over 300 students to go off and study various disciplines. All of them are bonded, so we hope they’ll come back and contribute here. One of the things that we negotiated going back to the Destiny Project was a scholarship fund of a million U.S. dollars every year in perpetuity. Again, the idea behind that was to educate and train our people. I’m particularly concerned that in this new world we need to upskill and reskill our people, particularly in terms of technology. AI, digital tools, our people need to be reoriented in terms of that. And our education system, whether it’s a formal system or we build alongside the formal system other programmes, we really need our people at all ages to now understand this new world in which we live. I can’t even say it’s a world that’s coming because the world is already here, but it’s a new world in which we live. So I think training, training, and more training is really the only way that I know that we can equip and build our people to take advantage of a new economy in the U.S. Anything further for me?”
With the geopolitical landscape shifting and traditional revenue channels of the Citizenship by Investment Programme under threat, Brantley maintains that building hard assets is a survival mechanism.
Infrastructure projects are designed to transition Nevis into a self-sustaining economy by investing millions upfront into drilling and grid infrastructure; the island intends to slash energy costs, attract new business, and generate clean-energy export revenue.
However, upskilling locals must fall hand in hand with infrastructural upgrades. One such instance is sending officials from the Nevis Electricity Company Limited (NEVLEC) to Iceland to build technical capacity and knowledge for the upcoming drilling phase of the Geothermal project.
Infrastructure spending can be considered a direct wealth-redistribution mechanism, keeping government capital inside the local community and providing immediate employment, skills training and capacity building.
