BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – IN addition to charging that the Government was stolen from the St. Kitts and Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP), Leader of that party and former Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas said the present administration won its way into government “on a ticket of deception”.
After some 20 years at the country’s helm, the SKNLP was voted out of office on February 16, 2015 and a Team Unity Government was elected and installed days later.
Dr. Douglas recently appeared on Freedom FM’s ‘Issues’ programme and indicated that promises made by Team Unity during the election campaign were only made to deceive the populace into throwing their support behind them.
While in opposition, Team Unity promised that VAT would be completely removed from food, medicine, educational supplies and funeral services, but according to Dr. Douglas the promise was to “remove VAT completely”.
“The reason why VAT has not yet been removed is that those who are now in government are deceivers. They won this particular government on a ticket of deception. Almost every turn they have tried to deceive the people of St. Kitts and Nevis saying one thing when they knew exactly the opposite…For example, the VAT…
“On the other hand the Opposition continued to say it was going to remove VAT completely. It cannot do it. The IMF was here recently…have you heard anything about the IMF visit? Has anyone asked the Prime Minister what did the IMF say about its stated intention…that it would remove the VAT? Nothing whatsoever. Because I believe that again the Prime Minister knew that he was being deceptive when he told the people of St. Kitts and Nevis that he was going to remove the VAT.”
Dr. Douglas also made reference to promises of increased wages for persons working for less than $500 per week and the compensation of ex-sugar workers for monies which he said they were to have received and did not.
A recent press release issued by the Team Unity Government informed that in excess of 100 St. Kitts-Nevis Citizenship by Investment Certificates of Registration were signed by Prime Minister the Hon. Dr. Timothy Harris “after due diligence reports confirmed that all was in order”.
Dr. Douglas took issue with this indicating that it is the same programme Team Unity had criticised when the Labour Party was in government, and now that Unity has gained power it is singing praises to the Citizenship By Investment programme.
“The CBI has been another case of deception by the current administration. (The) opposition then made scathing attacks on the CBI. They said that we were recruiting criminals and terrorists into our country from the Middle East. You would have thought therefore upon assuming office one of the first things they would do is to shut it down; at least shut it down at the point where you said that terrorists were being recruited.”
Dr. Douglas indicated that the due diligence checks mentioned in the release were actually performed while he was Prime Minister and not under Prime Minister Harris’ leadership.
