BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – LEADER of the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party Dr. the Hon. Denzil Douglas said he wants his personal effects that are in the Office of the Prime Minister and that one early morning he had removed what he wanted from there.
“I have personal effects right now in the Office of the Prime Minister. Personal effects bought by my own money. Gifts given to me and I can’t get them up to now,” adding, “Who want to follow me down there to get them?” to which the large crowd of supporters responded in the affirmative and with loud cheers at a Labour Party meeting held at Market Street on Thursday night (Mar. 12).
The former Prime Minister told the massive crowd that on the morning after the General Elections he had spoken to Commissioner Celvin ‘CG’ Walwyn who told him there was no problem in getting his personal effects from the office.
Dr. Douglas stated that he told the Commissioner of Police that Beverly Knights, his personal assistant at that time, would go and take his things out of that office.
He however declared: “Mind you, me ain’t stupid you know! Me ain’t leave nothing down there that they looking for. They must be think me stupid. Tell them I went down there four o’clock in the morning and me tek off wha me want, but me personal effects down there still. They must be think I stupid. They think I stupid? Well who smarter than me? I have nothing down there that they looking for, so they could search up and search up and search up, they ain’t going find nothing because me no gat nothing to hide. But I want my personal effects. I want them and I must get them.”
Dr. Douglas said it is three weeks since he told the new Administration that he wanted his personal effects but to date he is not in receipt of them
“Three weeks gone and me ain’t get it yet. So I ask you again, who ready to go down there and get them? Because, you see, I have been very, very quiet; so quiet that they say I wonder wha he ah plan, he so quiet. All I am saying…give me my personal things. That’s all! And let Beverly get hers as well and Andrea as well, because they work in the office.”
The Labour Party Leader claimed that instead of allowing the two women access to the office where they worked, the Unity Government had victimised them.
“But instead of that they have been victimised. Instead of that they have not been allowed to go into the office where they work. These are public servants, they are not political appointees! Miss Knights was performing her duties as a public officer. Yes, of course, she is in a sensitive position, but why the hell the woman can’t go into her office and get her personal effects? Why? Have the woman for days outside on a corridor, not even a chair to sit down on, with their forwardness. And have all kind of PAM people coming off the street; all kind of wash-you-foot-and-come going up there and ransacking people’s office and people’s things.”
He also spoke to the issue of ambassadors and diplomats, noting that he Team Unity Government has insinuated that all of them must be relieved of their position.
“And look what they are doing to the ambassador and diplomats. All of them they say must go. What foolishness is that? So because the government change it means the rest of the world must stop doing business with us, or we must stop doing business with the rest of the world?”
Dr. Douglas stressed that people have rights and if “you don’t want people to work for you then dismiss them under the contract and pay them off.”
He made reference to Pam Tyson, who was the personal secretary to the Federation’s first Prime Minister, Dr. Simmonds, noting that she had worked with no interference for three months under the Labour Party Government after the People’s Action Movement had lost the 1995 Elections.
Team Unity, a coalition of PAM, the Concerned Citizens Movement and the People’s Labour Party under the leadership of Prime Minister Dr. the Hon. Timothy Harris, had won the February 16, 2015 General Elections, gaining seven of the 11 seats in St. Kitts and Nevis.
