Soyi­ni Grey

Se­nior Re­porter

soyi­ni.grey@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is dis­miss­ing al­le­ga­tions from her coun­ter­part in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines that fi­nanciers of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress were in his coun­try to help the op­po­si­tion New De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty in the na­tion­al gen­er­al elec­tion on No­vem­ber 27.

Speak­ing at a Uni­ty Labour Par­ty po­lit­i­cal ral­ly in Canouan in the South­ern Grenadines on Wednes­day evening, Dr Ralph Gon­salves pub­licly al­leged that UNC fi­nanciers were in the coun­try and were fol­low­ing the elec­tions.

“The mon­ey men! Many of the mon­ey men be­hind the UNC have an in­ter­est in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines,” Gon­salves said. “Right now, as I speak, op­er­a­tives from the UNC in Trinidad have come here, and they’re here right now as I speak.”

Warn­ing about for­eign faces in the coun­try, Gon­salves al­leged the fi­nanciers were in­ter­est­ed in pur­chas­ing the land for the old port in Kingstown, and the 175-acre land sur­round­ing the for­mer ET Joshua Air­port. He said the NDP had spo­ken of pri­vatis­ing port op­er­a­tions, so the UNC fi­nanciers were hop­ing for sweet­heart deals to fa­cil­i­tate their ac­qui­si­tion of the lands in ques­tion.

How­ev­er, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad Bisses­sar said his state­ments are not true.

“Re­cent­ly, I have seen oth­er Cari­com Prime Min­is­ters and their par­ties ac­tive­ly and overt­ly cam­paign­ing and in­ter­fer­ing in gen­er­al elec­tions out­side of their coun­try with­in the Caribbean. The UNC does not par­tic­i­pate in that type of de­plorable and dis­rep­utable con­duct. The choice of a leader for St Vin­cent and the Grenadines is sole­ly for the peo­ple of that coun­try to make,” she said.

St Vin­cent’s iWit­ness News re­port­ed that par­ty mem­bers from the Bar­ba­dos Labour Par­ty land­ed in St Vin­cent yes­ter­day, one week ahead of the elec­tion, to help Gon­salves ULP’s cam­paign. Five peo­ple land­ed at Ar­gyle In­ter­na­tion­al in BLP-brand­ed cloth­ing just af­ter 11 am yes­ter­day.

It was re­port­ed that six ad­di­tion­al par­ty mem­bers may ar­rive from Bar­ba­dos to­day.

In Oc­to­ber, the Prime Min­is­ters of St Lu­cia and Do­mini­ca were in St Vin­cent for a one-day of­fi­cial vis­it that in­clud­ed a tour of the new Kingstown port and the hos­pi­tal con­struc­tion site in Arnos Vale. Both en­dorsed Gon­salves for an un­prece­dent­ed sixth term in of­fice.

St Lu­cia’s Prime Min­is­ter Phillip J Pierre is fac­ing his own elec­tion fight as his coun­try­men will head to the polls on De­cem­ber 1. Gon­salves had al­so re­port­ed­ly made a com­mit­ment to head to St Lu­cia af­ter his elec­tion bat­tle to help Pierre con­vince the elec­torate to vote for him.

The ac­cu­sa­tions from the St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter came af­ter Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Anil Roberts ques­tioned how his wife, daugh­ter, and son pur­chased units from the HDC run Vic­to­ria Keyes. Per­sad-Bisses­sar lat­er said the HDC would probe the mat­ter.

Yes­ter­day, she said, “The in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to Ralph’s fam­i­ly con­cern­ing the ac­qui­si­tion of three high-rise lux­u­ry apart­ments at Vic­to­ria Keyes have noth­ing to do with their gen­er­al elec­tions,” she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter re­mind­ed that the probe would de­ter­mine if fraud­u­lent de­c­la­ra­tions were made in the pur­chase of the prop­er­ties, ver­i­fy the source of funds for all three ac­qui­si­tions, and say how Gon­salves’ daugh­ter was about to ob­tain a favourable rent-to-own arrange­ment two days af­ter the April Gen­er­al Elec­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go.