Published 17 May 2018
Buckie Got It, St. Kitts and Nevis News Source
By: Media Source
PM Harris busses in supporters to clap at opening of 2018 Caribbean Investment Summit
Basseterre, St. Kitts, May 17, 2018 – One day after protesters demanded his resignation, St. Kitts and Nevis’ Prime Minister Dr. the Hon. Timothy Harris, embroiled in the Virdee-Antigua-St. Kitts Bribery Scandal, bussed in scores of supporters to give him a standing ovation at the official opening of the 2018 Caribbean Investment Summit here Thursday.
The start of the opening ceremony was delayed for over an hour to await the arrival of the clapping entourage from Harris’ village of Tabernacle. Civil servants and persons on the STEP programme who were given the day off by Dr. Harris attended the event at the St. Kitts Marriott Resort.
“Good morning, all persons who would be at the Summit today at the Marriott, we are asked to give a standing ovation – stand up and cheer the prime minister as he is called upon to do his address to the conference today,” said a voice note from a civil servant employed at the Central Purchasing Unit (CPU) and Harris’ PLP branch head in Constituency 4.
Harris did not comment on the scandal in which his name is being called in a sting operation by German police in which British tycoon Peter Virdee said Dr. Harris begged him for several favours including a watch and a pair of shoes.
The National Crime Agency in the UK alleges in its case that the intercepted conversations legally obtained by the German police implicated the Mr. Virdee and his partner in ‘conspiring to bribe corrupt officials; indicated that they had discussed bribes demanded by and paid to the Antiguan Minister for Development and the Prime Minister of. St Kitts; and included a recording of a conversation between the claimants [that is, Mr. Virdee and his partner] and the Antiguan Minister negotiating the amount of money due to the Minister personally for introducing Mr. Virdee to officials of St. Lucia and [of] St. Kitts.
Opposition parliamentarians in St. Kitts have called for Harris’ resignation. An Antigua and Barbuda government minister, who like Harris, is named in the scandal resigned from the Cabinet earlier this week.
In Basseterre on Wednesday, several placard-carrying persons stood outside Prime Minister Harris’ office demanding his resignation.
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