Those who imagined Kenny Anthony was winding down his life as a professional politician, including the hope he might quit raining on Philip J. Pierre’s parade, were this week given more reason to think again when he was announced as Calixte George Jr’s Lunch Room guest. Almost from the get-go the Vieux Fort South MP and former prime minister opened fire on Allen Chastanet and his administration.
In answer to a question about public procurement: “You now have a situation in the country,” he said, “where it’s a norm now, contracts by direct purchase. I know my detractors out there will say: ‘You used to do it too.’ But never on the scale that you see now. Public procurements laws have virtually gone by the wayside, have just disappeared.” Was he saying an action is determined bad dependent on the number of times it’s committed?
Of course, throughout his political career Kenny Anthony has demonstrated a persecution complex, whether the subject is the Ramsahoye Commission Report, IMPACS, Grynberg or the current prime minister’s still unfulfilled promise to undertake certain investigations relating to his immediate predecessor. No surprise that he fired at “detractors” when, as we shall see, it is the official record that speaks loudest of his own suspect handling of contracts by direct purchase.
Between 2012 and 2016, when he was prime minister, 426 direct purchase contracts were issued, a yearly average of 106.5. Between 2016 and 2019, the Chastanet administration issued 355 direct purchase contracts, an annual average of 118. Hardly precedent setting.
He pointed his prodigious accusatory finger at still another “never before”, this time in reference to the amount borrowed by the current government. “I believe we’re approaching the figure of over two billion dollars now,” said the former finance minister. “When you add, of course, the borrowing for the [Hewanorra] airport and the new borrowing for the road. I mean, this is really a remarkable achievement by the prime minister to have borrowed so much money in so little time.”
Again, not atypically, Anthony left it to listeners, judging by the ordinary meaning of his words, to determine whether he had inadvertently complimented Chastanet on “a really remarkable achievement”. In any case his possibly intended put-down amounted to spitting at the sky. A quick look at the record would reveal little difference in the spending of public funds by earlier administrations. A cursory glance at the expenditure figures between 2011 and 2019 reveals near insignificant difference.
But Anthony seemed determined not to let facts get in the way of the war he first declared on “the Chastanets” in the run-up to the 2016 elections that had toppled him.
He moved on to his successor’s modus operandi. “But look at other aspects of governance,” he said. “Does he consult with the opposition? You have a situation where very, very serious bills are sent to parliamentarians on a Friday, possibly on a Saturday, for debate on a Tuesday. So a lot of these bills never have the opportunity to be debated in the public at large.”
It became clearer and clearer as the interview limped on, how difficult it is for Kenny Anthony to manoeuvre himself without stepping on his own improvised explosive devices, in military circles known as IEDs. By now this is fact that Philip J. Pierre must be all too familiar with. Wasn’t it Kenny Anthony, as prime minister, who had leased several acres of Saint Lucia’s seabed to a crackpot oil speculator from Denver, Colorado without a word to his Cabinet or to parliament? The same Kenny Anthony who, twenty years after the deal was disastrously struck, refuses to be accountable? Poor Philip J. Pierre, there is hardly a question put to him by reporters that he does not answer with, “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.” It’s arrived at a stage where even regular citizens refer to the current SLP leader as “Mr. I Dunno!”
No interview or House speech involving the opposition is expected not to include the V-word. “Vindictive”, that is. “We’re in the era of vindictive politics,” Anthony declared with obvious authority. “It’s visceral.” Visceral? Did he actually mean to say “the era of vindictive politics” was somehow related to the nervous system?
“You don’t handle politics in such a personal way,” said the former schoolteacher turned politician. “This is a politics of punishment. And as a leader, you cannot do that. A leader is supposed to, as I said, pour oil over troubled waters. And has to have the capacity to heal his country, heal his nation. This is not happening here at all, I can tell you.”
This reporter initially considered the possibility that Calixte George’s guest had in mind an audience of one. A certain leading member of his party that he claimed not so long ago still had not made his own mark after 25 years in politics. The reporter miscalculated. A pained look twisting his visage, Anthony went on, as they say, to tear the ring. “Who can ever forget the way the former governor general was treated?”
For a split second the reporter believed Sir George Mallet was at long last about to receive a posthumous apology for the humiliation famously handed him via the 17 June 1997 throne speech—authored by the newly arrived prime minister. Imagine being in the governor general’s shoes, dear reader; forced to condemn the government of which you had been a part for some four decades without scandal. Imagine having to read, out of duty, the following indictment—destined to prove without merit. Vindictive?
“Corruption has been identified as the number-one issue in the minds of Saint Lucians. The extent of public sentiment has found expression in the popular culture, in calypsos such as Jaunty’s ‘Bobol List’, which expressed in no uncertain terms the revulsion that the ordinary Saint Lucian felt at the abuse of public office for private gain. The commission of inquiry established by the former administration to investigate the so-called UN Scandal exposed to public view the sordid dimension of this phenomenon. Although the work of the commission was never followed to its logical conclusion, it showed Saint Lucians how the levers of power could be manipulated, and punctuated the need for tighter accountability.”
Actually, the victim Kenny Anthony had in mind on Tuesday was the former governor general Pearlette Louisy. “She virtually had to go on bended knee to go and get what was due to her,” Anthony said. “She had to seek legal advice to impress upon the government that she was being treated wrongly. How do you do these things? There’s a certain manner when approaching these things. There has to be honour in government and that’s the point I’m making.”
He could hardly wait for the next question from his Lunch Room host who, until 6 June 2016, had been Anthony’s political attaché. It referenced the Hewanorra International Airport reconstruction project. “Do you think it is a cash cow? Are you afraid of a Piarco fiasco returning in Hewanorra?” Even your granny could’ve hit that one over the boundary!
“It is a cash cow!” Anthony bellowed. “No question, it is a cash cow. I don’t see the kind of controls, and I don’t think that SLASPA is a strong organisation that can protect the integrity of the interests of the people of Saint Lucia in this matter. So I have no doubt in my mind that it is a potential cash cow, especially given the approach and the secrecy that has been adopted.”
In plainer words, “the approach and the secrecy” rendered the project “a cash cow”. So what does that say about Frenwell? What does it say about Grynberg? Were (are?) the two projects cash cows? Of the first instance, this was the finding of the Ramsahoye Commission in 2009: “The prime minister and minister of finance had responsibility for the transaction whereby the money was lost [US$14,592,350]. There was no supervision or control by the government over the construction, equipping and management of the resort. The project, as conceived, failed without the people and the government being protected from the total loss and the costs associated with the repayment of the debts owing by Frenwell Limited. We consider the government was obliged to protect itself by ensuring that it had an equity in a viable concern in the event it was called upon to meet debts of the hotel company . . . There was no evidence that high level public servants who were engaged in the offices of Dr. Kenny Anthony, the prime minister and minister of finance, were involved in the decision making process concerning this transaction . . . We consider that the loss suffered in this matter was the result of maladministration and we would recommend that where the government enters into contracts for the procurement of goods and services the law regulating such agreements should be strictly followed. There were irregularities in public administration resulting in loss for the government and people of Saint Lucia. Public servants should have been involved in the transaction . . .”
In the interests of transparency and accountability, perhaps the next time Kenny Anthony visits the Lunch Room, the chief cook and bottle washer will invite him to sample an item or two from the Ramsahoye bakery. By now the Vieux Fort South MP has had his fill of soufflé.
