Published 26 March 2018
Buckie Got It, St. Kitts and Nevis News Source
By Meida Source
Why is Richard Caines silent on Timothy Harris’ sale of hundreds of acres of land to foreigners?
Basseterre, St. Kitts, March 26, 2018 – There is deafening silence and glaring hypocrisy from local businessman and former junior minister of finance, Richard Caines, to the sale of over 600 acres of land by Prime Minister Dr. Timothy Harris ‘to people who don’t belong to here.’
Mr. Caines, then a member of Operation Rescue, was one of a two-man demonstration outside Government Headquarters on October 31st 2012, against the land for debt swap. The other person demonstrating with Mr. Caines was Mr. Washington Archibald who died in June 2017.
According to SKNVIBES, the Operation Rescue members Richard Caines and Washington ‘Washie’ Archibald, stood on Church Street on the opposite side of Government Headquarters with one carrying placards and the other distributed copies of a document.
SKNVIBES reported: “Caines – a member of the former People’s Action Movement-administration – carried two placards suspended from his neck with one covering the front portion of his body and the other covering his back.”
“The front placard read, “So what land give away, even gov. minister disagree, corruption on a spree in SKB, don’t believe me, ask T-MO-T (Timothy Harris.’
Caines told SKNVIBES, the demonstration was being held as a message to Prime Minister Denzil Douglas and the government that “there are those of us in this country who do not support the position that he has adopted to sell out or give away the lands to people who don’t belong to here.”
Archibald said: “We are doing this in order to send a message that we are willing to defend our land. We believe in this situation…our land is under siege. We believe that there is a plot between Dr. Douglas and the National Bank to take away the land from our people.”
“Mr. Bradshaw – I believe – is turning in his grave just to see the abomination that is taking place with the land. Bradshaw was so extreme that he had an alien land-holding act which prevented strangers from coming in and taking possession of our land.
“Now look at what is happening. One of Bradshaw’s successors has actually decided to sell the land to strangers, the totally opposite thing from what Bradshaw intended and did. This is a shame, it’s a disgrace and I believe it is high treason against the people,” Archibald is quoted as telling SKNVIBES.
In March, Prime Minister Harris has publicly disclosed he recently sold hundreds of acres of those same lands to foreigners, but Richard Caines and other detractors of the Labour Government are yet to break their silence.
The St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank (Vesting of Certain Lands) Bill 2012, was passed into law which provided for 1,200 acres of crown land to be transferred to the bank for the settlement of government’s EC$700 million debt to that institution. No land was ever sold by the Labour Government when it left office in February 2015, as plans were in train for the Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation (SIDF) to purchase the lands from National Bank,
Photo: Richard Caines
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