By IPS Correspondents
ST. GEORGE'S, Jun 21 1995 (IPS)

Grenadians have taken a gamble on a new man for their top political post hoping perhaps that a fresh face would ease the pain of four years of structural adjustment and spur the country on to renewed growth.

At general elections Tuesday 42 year old statistician Keith Mitchell became the island’s prime minister after his New National Party (NNP) won eight of the 15 seats in the country’s parliament.

Mitchell, a former Works Minister in the Herbert Blaize administration (1984-89), says his immediate task is to reduce taxes and tackle unemployment.

Observers note that he will also have to inspire in Grenadians a sense of hope for the future.

The eastern Caribbean island, known globally for its nutmeg trade, has just ended a self-inflicted structural adjustment programme which saw drastic reductions in state spending.

The programme began in 1991 under the Nicholas Brathwaite government which had inherited a shaky economy from the Ben Jones administration.

Brathwaite, a reluctant politician, spent the majority of his tenure under seige from his own party members, a disaffected public and an economy that barely responded to his austerity programmes. He finally resigned from politics in earlier this year to allow his deputy George Brizan to lead the National Democratic Congress (NDC) through the national polls.

Mitchell, whose party captured an estimated 33 percent of the popular vote, appeared to have chosen wisely in choosing unemployment as one of his priorities. Political analysts here say he secured the majority of the young vote and that this, above all, indicates that Grenadians want him to tackle the problem of joblessness.

Some 60 percent of the country’s 98,000 people are under age 25 and unemployment is running close to 30 percent opposition parties say, although the government insists it is no more than 18 percent.

The country’s economy has not registered more than a two percent growth in the five years of the NDC administration. Last year there was negative growth and according to a recent government survey, the number of Grenadians living below the poverty line has doubled over the last eight years.

The shaky economic performance has been inspired by a decline in the agricultural sector, now the eastern Caribbean island’s number two foreign exchange earner. Bananas, nutmeg and cocoa, the three main export crops, have done badly over the last five years because of falling world commodity prices and diseases.

Farmers have opted out of producing these crops in favour of vegetables which are readily sold on the local and regional markets.

Mitchell has also promised to reduce taxes by cutting out income tax re-introduced only this year by Brizan.

“I don’t hold the view just because you reduce tax you are going to get less revenue,” Mitchell said Wednesday. “If you really reduce taxes with the sole incentive of economic development and you spur economic activity, you will create more revenue for government in the long run and jobs will be created and the whole country will benefit.”

The last administration had instituted a 10 percent income tax for those earning between 3,700 and 9,000 U.S. dollars. For those earning more than 9,000 dollars per year the tax rate is 15 percent.

Mitchell has also surprised Grenadians by putting at the top of his list of things to do, the reactivation of executions. No one has been executed in Grenada since 1976, but murders have been running about four each year since 1984. Before then Grenadians would go years before hearing of a murder committed in their island.

“I believe when a man sits and plans to take another man’s life, he must also plan how to lose his,” Mitchell said during the campaign.

His plan to begin hangings might well have to do with the importance the tourist trade has gained in the island. Over the last eight years, tourism has usurped agriculture’s position as the number one foreign exchange earner.

Over the last two years two new hotels have been opened offering 312 more rooms and charter services have been added to increase the number of visitors to the island. In 1993, 96,000 tourists visited the island and more than 100,000 came last year.

The prime minister elect also plans to review the privatisation programme, one of the pillars of the last administration’s structural adjustment programme. He has said that he plans to buy back the Grenada Electricity Services (Grenlec) sold last year to a U.S. company.

“If a government in a small country as Grenada is to direct development it is necessary for it to control key assets such as power generation,” Mitchell said last year as the sale was finalised.

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