Published 2 November 2022
Basseterre
Buckie Got It, St.Kitts and Nevis News Source
THE ST KITTS AND NEVIS GOVERNMENT HAS LAUNCHED A PROBE into corruption allegations against the former Timothy Harris regime which Prime Minister, Dr Terrance Drew said Wednesday has driven the twin-island Federation to the brink of complete financial collapse.
Following the conclusion of the ongoing investigations and submission of reports into the financial wrongdoings by the previous government, PM Drew promised his administration will go after all perpetrators.
Preliminary reports so far are suggesting massive corruption, Dr Drew said Wednesday in an exclusive with this media house.
“The reports are showing how our country’s monies were abused and wasted through numerous corrupt practices by the previous administration and action will be taken. We cannot sit back and allow those responsible for these actions. They cannot go without any action being taken against them for this wanton abuse,” he promised.
Drew’s St Kitts and Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) unseated Harris’ coalition Team Unity in last August polls, after internal strife, based on corruption allegations by members of the then ruling party’s cabinet, triggered its collapse.
Three months after, the SKNLP is finding out there is substance to the former Cabinet members complaints.
“In other words, we are in the RED and this report was delivered to me recently by the FS (Financial Secretary), Mrs. Hilary Hazel. We do not have a surplus but rather a deficit, so we were losing monies rather than making,” the Prime Minister revealed.
Last month Drew said his administration eschews politics of spite and victimisation, and the current scrutiny into the spending habits of the Peoples Labour Party (PLP), Peoples Action Movement (PAM), and the Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) which comprised the seven-year-old Harris’ government is not a veiled attempt at these.
Harris, who graduated at the top of his class in his post graduate studies in accountancy, didn’t somehow bring the same astuteness and insight into protecting the national purse, if Drew’s accusations of financial improprieties against him hold true.
This is what Drew said he is finding out as the newly-elected PM.
“The economy is running on 50 to 60 percentage of the CBI (Citizen By Investment) monies. Most of the monies was going into social programmes as most of the factories closed down so people were solely dependent on the social programmes. We have to create an economy that isn’t so dependent (on the CBI).”
“We found significant corruption in several of these social programmes. For the PEACE, the PAP and STEP programmes we found a lot of fake names, a whole lot of fake names with false social security numbers and it is not only there that we found this level of corruption,” an outraged PM said.
He explained: “What happened is that people assumed that they need employment….so what the government did is that they basically collected the passport money and sent people home and left people at home. So, the monies between the STEP, the PAP and the PEACE and they paid all these dollars.”
Basseterre and its nationals and residents cannot thrive relying on government handouts, Drew counselled. There must be job creation and confidence in the economy. These were decimated by the Harris regime characterised by discrimination and victimisation of human resources not aligned to his three-party regime, according to the PM.
His administration, he said, inherited the Herculean task of reversing the financial mess left by Team Unity. “We have a huge task of changing the fortunes of this country based on the actions of the previous government,” the PM lamented.
But there is sufficient evidence that monies were syphoned off from the ailing economy through bare-faced fraud. For example, unqualified persons ripped off the social programmes to the tune of millions of dollars, Drew disclosed. The Attorney General’s office is leading the investigations at the end of which legal action is expected against all those involved, Drew warned.
