‘Awesome Deal’ to create jobs
Out of work? Never fear.
The Virgin Islands government has launched a foolproof system for creating jobs in difficult times, officials announced this week.
The initiative is modelled on the New Deal, a 1930s-era programme that helped boost the United States out of the Great Depression by creating jobs building dams, roads and other infrastructure projects.
The VI’s plan is similar, but much more progressive, officials said.
“The New Deal provided each job just once,” Premier Ralph O’Neal said during a recent press conference. “My government’s Awesome Deal will provide the same jobs over and over and over again.”
This is because New Deal infrastructure projects were built to last, unlike their VI counterparts almost 80 years later.
The pilot phase of the Awesome Deal is already under way, with contractors hired to repair the roads damaged last year by record rains and flooding. Major works started in May, just in time for the BVI Music Festival in Cane Garden Bay.
Fortunately, the repairs didn’t last long. When heavy rains fell again this month, the newly laid asphalt started washing away, just as it did last October.
Now, more contracts will be necessary.
“Bang! Jobs created!” Mr. O’Neal said. “No doubt you’ll hear people complain that the roads are falling apart again. But they only want to detract from this government’s successes.”
The initiative, he said, is proceeding exactly as planned.
“Instead of employing people for a limited time, we’ll employ them indefinitely for every project,” he said.
Retaining walls
The first phase of the Awesome Deal also includes retaining walls, some of which collapsed in this month’s rains.
“These collapses actually create two kinds of work: Cleanup and reconstruction,” explained Communications and Works Minister Julian Fraser.
Cleaning up a collapsed wall like the one that recently toppled in Mr. Fraser’s Third District can require multiple contracts: Himacs, for example, are needed to clear fallen dirt and concrete, and trucks are needed to haul away debris.
And that’s before construction even starts on a new wall.
“We have entire micro-economies built up around these walls,” Mr. Fraser explained. “And as long as we keep them shoddy, we can expand on that paradigm indefinitely.”
These micro-economies are also expected to create a ripple effect in the wider economy.
Builders, for example, may be needed to repair damage when retaining walls collapse on houses and businesses. And if a wall happens to fall on a vehicle, car dealerships could get a boost.
Internships
The Awesome Deal is also designed to give young workers a chance to gain valuable experience, officials said.
To that end, the Ministry of Education and Culture has established an internship programme for recent graduates.
Because most young people have no experience surfacing roads or building retaining walls, their work will probably wash away almost immediately, officials explained. Thus, jobs will be created as efficiently as possible.
Contractors around the territory praised the new system.
“This is great,” one contractor said. “This way, everyone will get a piece of a greatly expanded pie.”
The contractor added that his company will save money, because there will no longer need to be any pretence of quality.
The Awesome Deal was launched this week under the theme “Give a Man a Reasonable Contract and he’ll Eat for a Day; Give a Man a Dozen Lucrative Contracts and he’ll Definitely Vote for You.”
If the pilot phase is successful, the government may use a similar approach with other projects.
The new hospital and the greenhouses show much potential, officials said: Both projects have provided dozens of jobs, and they’re not anywhere near completion.
“We can probably drag those projects out for years, employing hundreds,” Mr. O’Neal said. “These are trying times, but no one here will go without work under the Awesome Deal. And with an election coming up, what could be more awesome than that?”