[dropcap]S[/dropcap]o predictable has he been over the last several years, especially so since June 6, 2016, that few Saint Lucians would bet money on Kenny Anthony’s ability to catch even a sightless six-year-old off guard. Then again, upon reflection I am inclined to reconsider. Perhaps he did pull off during his contribution to Thursday’s budget debate one surprise—if only where a particular writer is concerned.
Who would’ve imagined the now you see him, now you don’t former prime minister suggesting, with Saint Sarah seated but a few feet from where he stood at the speaker’s lectern, that Allen Chastanet was the first finance minister to include in his budget presentation an announcement of intended government investigation into events in public administration in Saint Lucia?
The way he put it to fellow MPs on Thursday evening: Allen Chastanet had “accused members of this House on of participating in suspicious undertakings. This is almost unprecedented, that a minister of finance would seek to use a budget address to cast aspersions on members on this side.”
If the former prime minister meant to convey to fellow parliamentarians and the interested public that what he complained of was not quite without precedent, all well and good. It would hardly be the first time he spewed gibberish before an audience. After all, “almost” is defined as “not quite . . . nearly.” Alas, what followed rendered the listener less charitable.
“[The prime minister] directed his attention to myself, the member for Dennery North, and the member for Castries South. He said there is still a lot of blinding smoke to be cleared from around a number of public concerns, including how we became embroiled in the marital affairs of a Saudi billionaire and what induced the former prime minister to partner with an American oil speculator notorious for his business practices. We must clear the suffocating smoke that conceals the truth . . . This action by this government comes as no surprise. For months, I have been waiting for it. It is clear that elections are motivated by revenge, malice, spite and ill will. To make matters worse, he is doing so at the direction and dictation of the publisher of the STAR newspaper.”
Never mind the Vieux Fort MP’s contrary assertion, the prime minister did not direct his attention to any particular MP in relation to his impending investigation. But perhaps more important is that Kenny Anthony, in all the seventeen years since he secretly entered into the famous Grynberg agreement, has never once addressed the issue in parliament. When finally he did on Thursday, this writer fully expected to hear him put the matter to rest with a full, even a partial disclosure of the details. No such luck. Instead, he asserted that the Prime Minister Chastanet, in announcing his investigation, was reacting to related televised remarks by this writer.
Finally, this is what Anthony said: “I have been through persecution before . . . but he [Chastanet] must never come before the courts of justice with unclean hands . . . What I promise the minister of finance is this: when he embarks on whatever action he embarks on, I will make sure that he reaps the whirlwind for his action.” At least this time around he stayed clear of such flamethrowers as “war” and “the wrath of the people of Vieux Fort north and south!”
Readers may be interested to know that after the U.S. Senate passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act allowing the expansion of slavery into the western territories, newspaperman James Pike of the New York Tribune warned the Southerners: “You are sowing the wind and you will reap the whirlwind.” As for the “almost precedential” action referred to by the MP for Vieux Fort South, it is a matter of record that among his first official activities following the 1997 general elections was his announcement at budget time, via the day’s governor general Sir George Mallet, that: “My government will, in conformity with the promises made during the election campaign, establish a commission to investigate all cases of alleged corruption and to establish which cases warrant further legal action and prosecution. We are resolute to pursue this course of action because the people have cried out for justice. And once a blind eye has been turned to corruption, the institutional environment is created for its unchecked proliferation.”
Another kick in the teeth: The follow-up Louis Blom-Cooper inquiry into “a trio of events in public administration in St Lucia” not only found John Compton and Vaughan Lewis clean, but that they also merited an apology from the Kenny Anthony government. Ain’t life a bitch!
