Questions from where candidates got their wealth
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – FORMER senior minister now Leader of Opposition alliance Team Unity, Dr. Timothy has levelled bribery charges against Labour Party candidates and their agents, claiming that they are offering money and government vouchers to electorates in St. Kitts in an effort to retain power in the upcoming general election.
Dr. Harris made this accusation on Tuesday (Nov. 11) in Independence Square, where he announced that he had filed an action in the High Court; an Order directing the Speaker to schedule his Motion of No Confidence filed on September 15, 2014 for debate at the next sitting of the National Assembly.
Asked if he would allude to Lindsay Grant’s statement of Team Unity not having any money and insinuating that the Labour Party Administration’s pocket is deep, Harris said his team is not attempting to buy votes.
“We are not going down the path of attempting to buy votes…we leave that exclusively to Douglas. We believe that the people want to be put in a position where their quality of life prospects are being enhanced for the long-term and not just for an election cycle.
“In fact, that is the argument. If you allow your vote to be sold, then to those whom you have sold it figure that they have no further obligation to you until election time. If you take now $500 to vote for one of the Douglas Party’s candidates, how will that help you three months from now? That can’t serve you for a week properly!”
He outlined some of the plans Team Unity has for the people of St. Kitts and Nevis should they win the next election.
“We are saying that we will create the opportunities for you to earn a job, to set up your business. We will make life easier by reducing students’ loan payments and by reducing mortgages on homes. That will help you more than selling your vote for a thousand dollars, two thousand dollars and then for the rest of the five years they forget you until election time comes again. We want to move people from poverty to prosperity, and our policy is landownership, homeownership, job creation, prioritising locals and our CARICOM kit and kin. Those are policies that help.”
Citing a statement Prime Minister Douglas made late last year to CARICOM nationals, especially those from Guyana and Jamaica, of establishing a desk with the aim of granting amnesty to all those whose status were not regularised, Harris insinuated that it was a political ploy and that Team Unity would make life better for those non-nationals residing in the Federation.
“When Douglas said to the CARICOM nationals that he would set up a desk, what is a desk? As easily as he said something else, he can dismantle it! Though we are talking specific, we have said in Team Unity to our friends from Guyana and Jamaica who are residing here, ‘You are our kit and kin, you are part of the family and we want to end the discrimination against you at the JNF Hospital. The differential in hospital fees, we will bring that to an end; treat you the same way…you pay the same tariff for electricity and so on.’
“We are saying to them that ‘when your child goes to the CFBC there will be no discriminatory fees, you will be treated as our own because that is the spirit of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramus which we will uphold’. We will uphold the principle and spirit of it and we will uphold all the rulings that came out of the Myrie case.”
However, contrary to Dr. Harris’ views on the “desk”, hundreds of Guyanese and Jamaicans have had their status regularised. This writer was present when scores of them had appeared at the Ministry of Homeland Security and only had to pay for overstaying only in 2013 and were forgiven the previous years; some as much as eight years. But they are yet to benefit from the fees of CFBC and the Joseph N France Hospital.
Asked if he had empirical evidence of the Labour Party candidates and their agents offering bribes to the electorates, the tri-party coalition Leader responded in the affirmative and offered a number of questions.
“We have lots of evidence, and I am sure if you ask around you too will find it. And you too must wonder at the new found wealth of Labour Party candidates who have had record of going to the Court and able to pay their debts. How they become so wealthy now to be offering all the freeness? How come they are so wealthy now to offer two and three campaign offices? Some of them are not even working, so how come they are financing all of these grand developments? Where is it coming from? Where is the unforeseen source of wealth and resources?”
He continued: “The country knows what is happening! You ask people who have come to them and offer them money to support their campaign. We know what is happening and we know other people who have been offering things…a government voucher if you will vote. So you get a voucher and you go to a hardware store and you will be able to get things for repairs.”
Harris intimated that what the Labour Party Administration is doing is tantamount to abuse of State resources and that all of those matters would be investigated by a Team Unity Government, “because we need to clean up to ensure that we can move forward with a better government’s agenda”.
At the time of posting this article, all efforts in contacting certain Ministers of the ruling Labour Party for a comment were futile.
