BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, JANUARY 15TH 2014 (CUOPM) – The Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis has received some EC$280 million (75 million Euros) from the European Union (EU) since 2007.
This was disclosed Tuesday by the Head of Delegation to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, His Excellency Ambassador Mikael Barford.
Making history, by being the first person to appear with St. Kitts and Nevis’ Prime Minister the Right Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas on his weekly radio programme “Ask the Prime Minister, the EU official said “if you measure that capita over the recent years, then St. Kitts and Nevis has benefited more from its partnership with the EU than any other country in the African-Caribbean and Pacific Group that received a bulk of government development assistance from the European Union.”
“So we are quite proud to have contributed to a number of key interventions in St. Kitts and Nevis and in light of the locally planned National Adaptation Strategy,” said Mr. Barford.
“Some examples of what we are doing here, is in Information Technology, where we have training, rehabilitation of the hospital, safety and security, social policy planning, public finance management reforms and much, much more,” he said.
The Bridgetown-based official said that in the next phase that starts next year, “we will start at the request of the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis to work more on energy, renewable energy which is very important for the economy.”
He said the EU Delegation has been working very closely with the National Authorizing Officer, Mrs. Hilary Hazel and a number of colleagues in the Ministry of Finance on all bi-lateral programmes.
“I do think we work very well together, so I am pleased with the way the programmes are working here in the country and the reason why I am here now is to deepen our dialogue with the country, so that the budget support that we provide benefits the country of St. Kitts and Nevis the most. The support which is basically a way of providing the government with funds, where you provide an advance to the Government, then you set a number of performance indicators and then you entrust with the government to achieve them. Sometimes with technical assistance but sometimes without assistance and the next thing is you pay us in tranches based on the achievements of the Government according to the performance targets. That system works quite well,” said Ambassador Barford.