Will new PM Dare Walk the Walk where his Predecessors Only Talked the Talk?

Considering the election-time imputations of egregious misconduct, from bar brawls, attempted bribery of a prime minister and church service disruptions to kidnappings and drug trafficking, it was only to be expected that among the new administration’s top priorities would be the permanent weeding out of tainted public servants from the presumed sainted.

Barely a month after assuming office, and amidst predictable howls of victimization and vindictiveness, the government confirmed its election pledge to pursue its suspicions about such controversial projects as the Hewanorra Airport reconstruction, the St. Jude Hospital mirage, the perennially clouded operations of the Housing Corporation and the previous administration’s connections with Desert Star Holdings—a Hong Kong-based management and investment company quietly engaged during Kenny Anthony’s 2011-16 term as prime minister.  

There has been no recent word on the contentious IMPACS Report, not since the Barbados-based U.S. ambassador’s pre-elections visit, when she said crippling Leahy Law sanctions imposed on the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force in 2012 would stay in effect until the local Director of Public Prosecutions submitted to the U.S. Secretary of State a satisfactory report on alleged “gross violations of human rights” by the island’s police in 2010-11.   

Two weeks or so prior to the 26 July 2021 elections, eleven years after a coroner’s court declared them “not unlawful,” the DPP announced his own determination to prosecute at least two of the State Department’s “potentially unlawful” fatal police shootings.

Then there was the surprise official meeting with a Desert Star Holdings delegation several days after the Philip J. Pierre administration took office. Despite that during its campaign for office Pierre’s party had persistently pledged to investigate the previous government’s arrangements with the company’s CEO Teo Ah Khing, there has been no related announcement.

Meanwhile the new administration has broadcast its ambitious but generally well-received intention to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate several longstanding matters normally undertaken by the DPP’s office. It remains conjectural whether the laundry list will include unresolved aspects of Operation Restore Confidence, the unexplained fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old student two years ago, as well as the case of Kimberly de Leon, mother of two young girls. She was fatally shot in the head as she prepared for bed. Her husband, a police officer, has repeatedly claimed he was at the time of the shooting not at home. Pending is his slander lawsuit against police officers and others who had publicly declared him a “person of interest” in the matter, then backtracked!

Speaking of the DPP, special prosecutors and politicians, the following by a former constitutional law lecturer comes to mind: “A commission of inquiry is essentially preventive and curative. It is not primarily about punishment!”

The carefully stated revelation tends to explain why, despite the several commissions of inquiry undertaken in Saint Lucia over the years, no related charges have ever been laid. Conceivably that will change with the promised precedential appointment of a special prosecutor. (In the United States a special counsel is a lawyer appointed to investigate, and potentially prosecute a particular case of suspected wrongdoing for which a conflict of interest exists for the usual prosecuting authority.)

Be reminded that in Saint Lucia “the usual prosecuting authority” is the office of the DPP. So, might there be something about the matters to be investigated that could amount to a conflict of interest if prosecuted by the office of the DPP?

Incidentally, the cautious reminder that commissions of inquiry are “not primarily about punishment” was delivered by Prime Minister Kenny Anthony during a July 1999 session of parliament, shortly after Sir Louis Blom-Cooper handed in his 1998 “Report of the Commission of Inquiry into a trio of events in public administration in Saint Lucia in the 1990s”—wherein the commissioner ironically warned:

“From the limited but not unrevealing perspective of the Commission of Inquiry I have discerned a culture in Saint Lucia of studied indifference or, at the very least, inattention to the practice, even the concept of public accountability. A cultural climate in which administrative torpor is often the consequence, and malpractices in government—including corruption—can thrive. I have identified in this report certain aspects of serious malpractice and maladministration in government.”

Moreover: “The suspicion in the public’s mind that the machinery of government is not working, and consequently that corruption is rife, is almost as damaging to the public weal as individual corruption itself. Good governance is the key to the future stability and development in the territories of the Caribbean. Saint Lucians should be assured that failures and malpractices in government, once identified, will not go publicly unnoticed.”

To be absolutely fair to the aforementioned Kenny Anthony, I should add that at the recalled 1999 session of parliament he also said: “Mr. Speaker, this report has shed light on the past malpractices that breed corruption. I assure you and this honorable House that my government will never allow this light to go out. No more will we revert to the dark old days of malpractices, maladministration and deceit!”

Following is a statement by Sir Fenton Ramsahoye Q.C.,  lifted from his report at the end of an inquiry initiated in 2009 by the government of Prime Minister Stephenson King: “We consider that the loss [millions of dollars] which the government and people of Saint Lucia suffered in this matter was the result of maladministration, and we would recommend that where government enters into contracts for the procurement of goods and services, the law regulating such agreements should be strictly followed . . . We also consider that where the government guarantees the debts of other persons, the resolution under the Finance (Administration) Act should give details of the liability so that both the members of parliament and the national community should understand the liability which was undertaken in order that the demands of accountability and transparency required by good governance [that phrase again!] will be satisfied.”

So much for Sir Blom-Cooper’s recipe for good governance—“the key to the future stability of the territories of the Caribbean.” So much for Prime Minister Kenny Anthony’s uplifting assurance in 1999 that the light turned on by Sir Louis Blom-Cooper  would not be switched off, and never again would Saint Lucia   “revert to the dark old days of malpractices, maladministration and deceit”  

And now it is Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre who has promised to pressure-clean Saint Lucia’s scummy   public service—assisted by a yet to be identified Special Prosecutor. A criminally abused nation holds its breath!