Mixing politics with business? CIC comes under fire

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, November 19th 2009 (Labour Secretariat) - Questions surround the professionalism and operation of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (CIC) for allegedly mixing business and politics with its hidden agenda in supporting the return of opposition party, the People’s Action Movement (PAM) to office in the upcoming general elections.
 
The ruling Labour Party’s candidate for Constituency #2, Marcella Liburd, speaking at a public meeting in Saddlers, on Sunday night, said there is some sort of collusion with influential members of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce and the PAM Party.
 
“How else would Sydney Osbourne as Chairman of PAM get a press release that is supposed to be coming from the Chamber, before the Chamber itself could release it?,” Liburd asked.
 
Controversy kicked in following WINNFM’s Inside The News talk show programme last Saturday (7. Nov) when Chairman of the Opposition People’s Action Movement (PAM), Sydney Osbourne, read a copy of a press release (joint communique) before it was released to the media on November 10.
 
The press release in question claimed to have been a joint statement by the St. Kitts Evangelical Association, The St. Kitts Christian Council and the St. Kitts and Nevis Chamber of Industry and Commerce.
 
Reportedly, the document generally addressed the code of conduct for the upcoming general elections with concern over instability in the country should the constituency boundaries be changed.
 
As indicated by Ms. Liburd the PAM Chairman “got some kind of insider dealing.”
 
She continued: “The release is supposed to be coming from the Chamber of Commerce, the Christian Council and Evangelical Association, but he as Chairman of PAM is the first person to put out the release.”
 
The Labour Party candidate for Constituency #2 went on further to address the apparent conspiracy between the Chamber of Industry and Commerce and the PAM party.
 
“….There is some sort of collusion, some sort of connection, some sort of association between at least some members of the Chamber of Commerce who have an agenda to remove this government …You could see that there is some collusion between them and the People’s Action Movement,” Liburd said.
 
In accordance to her, there are PAM activists in the Chamber of Industry and Commerce who are wearing two hats which is “their PAM hat and their business hat.”
 
“The only hat they have on is their PAM hat. They have forgotten about their business hat,” she said.
 
Liburd said the government has been fair to the organization and that is why it doing so good from a business standpoint under the Labour Party government.
 
Meanwhile deputy political leader and lone parliamentarian for PAM, Shawn Richards, has been tied to making statements, last Thursday night at a PAM public meeting in Molineux, claiming that a member of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce authorized Osbourne to publicize the document and that he (Richards) did not see the need for the controversy.
 
At a live press briefing held at the CIC headquarters on Monday morning, all parties named in the press release collectively blamed communication  isssues for last week's much debated issue.
 
President of the Evangelical Association, Ron Dublin-Collins said: “We experienced some communication glitches and this was a result of systems and mechanisms we had not implemented at the time."
 
Additionally, representatives  of the  CIC publicy owned up to knowing  they are aware of who had given out the initial joint communique, but declined to give the person's name.