Akash Sama­roo

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) has ini­ti­at­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the ac­qui­si­tion of a unit at Vic­to­ria Keyes by St Vin­cent and the Grenadines PM Dr Ralph Gon­salves’ daugh­ter.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar pro­vid­ed Guardian Me­dia with doc­u­ments show­ing that the “rent to own” agree­ment en­tered in­to be­tween the HDC and Soleil Gon­salves hap­pened two days af­ter the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion but be­fore her Gov­ern­ment was sworn in­to of­fice.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar backed her Min­is­ter in the Hous­ing Min­istry, Anil Roberts, for bring­ing to the fore what she called “le­git­i­mate con­cerns” about how Gon­salves’ wife and two chil­dren were able to at­tain the units.

“It’s a le­git­i­mate con­cern be­ing raised by Anil that thou­sands of cit­i­zens are wait­ing on ac­com­mo­da­tion from HDC, and one fam­i­ly gets three lux­u­ry high-rise apart­ments in Vic­to­ria Keys. I think the rent-to-own arrange­ment en­tered in­to two days af­ter the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, when no gov­ern­ment was in place, is the most egre­gious.

“This was rushed through two days af­ter the Gen­er­al Elec­tion and be­fore the new­ly elect­ed Gov­ern­ment was sworn in.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said HDC is com­pil­ing a re­port, and when com­plet­ed, it will be for­ward­ed to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) for fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion if nec­es­sary.

And with Gon­salves con­sid­er­ing le­gal ac­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said he could do as he wants.

“He is free to pur­sue le­gal ac­tion.”

The Prime Min­is­ter is deny­ing that Min­is­ter Roberts made those rev­e­la­tions out of ret­ri­bu­tion af­ter Gon­salves dis­agreed with her stance that the Caribbean is not a zone of peace.

“I have no in­ter­est in any ret­ri­bu­tion against Ralph, as his opin­ions have nev­er had any ef­fect on my de­ci­sion-mak­ing. I al­so have no in­ter­est in the cur­rent elec­tions in St Vin­cent, as that is sole­ly for the peo­ple of St Vin­cent to choose their lead­ers.”

St Vin­cent and the Grenadines cit­i­zens go to the polls on No­vem­ber 27 as Gon­salves seeks an un­prece­dent­ed sixth con­sec­u­tive term in of­fice.

Gon­salves dis­missed Roberts’ claims as po­lit­i­cal mis­chief, not­ing his wife and chil­dren, as T&T cit­i­zens, were el­i­gi­ble to buy units at the open-mar­ket Vic­to­ria Keyes. He ac­cused Roberts of aid­ing the op­po­si­tion.

Nakhid threat­ens ‘licks’

Mean­while, Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor David Nakhid has warned that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) will dish out “licks” to the PNM and oth­er Cari­com lead­ers if they act as “prox­ies” of the Op­po­si­tion.

“This is the UNC that any­time PNM and their prox­ies come out to rinse them out on the UNC lead­er­ship, you will get some licks. We don’t care if you are do­mes­tic prox­ies of the PNM or in­ter­na­tion­al prox­ies.”

Re­fer­ring to Gon­salves’ con­tra­dic­to­ry po­si­tion to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s on the Caribbean be­ing a zone of peace, Nakhid said via a Face­book video, “We nev­er com­ment on your poli­cies. Why you de­cide to com­ment on the pol­i­cy of our leader who is act­ing in the in­ter­est of our peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go? That is not your busi­ness. You know what you did. And you open your­self up for some licks.”

“Ralph Gon­salves or Mia Mot­t­ley, who­ev­er in the Cari­com area feel that they could sup­port the PNM, come dif­fer­ent­ly. This UNC, very dif­fer­ent. For Trinidad and To­ba­go and the rest of Cari­com, love in the house, all the time.”

How­ev­er, Gon­salves said Nakhid should be more care­ful with what he says.

“If he has in his sights Ralph and Mia, I would say that most Caribbean peo­ple would say that he should be more cir­cum­spect.”