With 10-10-10 fastly approaching us and persons starting to panic where it concerns the new taxes if any at all, I have noticed many persons putting their property up for sale.
My advice would be to hold fast to your land, remember you may have children and grand children who one day might want to own a piece of the rock and if you get rid of it now they will become more or less strangers in their own land as they will be forced to have to purchase land from expatriates.
Many years ago I can recall now Senator Will Johnson from the platform of the Government Administration Building on many Saba Day celebrations calling on the people of Saba to hold fast to their land and I want to say that we should still maintain that call. Some 10 years ago as Sabans we were all proud to boast that the majority of business places on the island were in the hands of the indigenous local people. We have seen that slip away from us gradually and we should not allow our land that our forefathers have worked so hard to obtain.
There are those that say that they love Saba so much and come here and buy property and houses and now that we are going to become part of mother Holland they are the first ones to put up their houses and property for sale and for some huge prices. I say to them if you had loved Saba so much then before forwarding all of the money that you obtain for the sale of your house or property to make a donation to one of the institutions on the island such as Child Focus, Lions Club or any other social, cultural, educational or sporting group on the island.
Be thankful to Saba that you have been able to make a huge profit without having to contribute anything back to the island. I love to listen to some of these expats wanting to tell us what we should be doing, but they are the first ones to pack up and leave.
Becoming a public entity as far as I can see can never be worse than what we have now. I did not vote for any status change but the reality is that I firmly believe that becoming part of Holland will have benefits for the island and its indigenous people. We must not lose focus though to stand up for what we as nationals believe in for our island.
As Sabans we have to stand together in the coming months, years and work towards building a good economy for our little island and the future generations. We cannot get any worse off, there is hope at the end of the tunnel and let us as locals work on achieving our common goals. We should not have to wait on anyone to come and do it for us we are so accustom of doing everything ourselves so let us continue on that positive route.
So fellow Sabans, I call on all of you to hold fast to your land. It makes no sense to panic or worry. As leaders within this community each and every one of us got a role to play. Politicians will fight each other but at the end of the day they all are fighting for the same cause and that is for Saba and its people.
As a community we have to be critical at all times and making sure that we get the best for our little island of Saba. Those that come and say how much they love the island is showing plain that they only came to make money out of us and because we are becoming closer to mother Holland they now running away with the big dollars. We got to implement some sort of law that any expat that comes here and builds and buys up property when they are about to sell that they have to leave a considerable amount of that money that they make on Saba behind for social institutions. After all they have made use of our infrastructure and also criticized it at times and maybe also contribute to all motorists for the free rides.
Dave Levenstone.
Citizen of Saba.