20th May 2019
Can Chastanet find the courage to attack St. Lucia’s ‘Culture of Studied Indifference to Corruption?’
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By Star Newspaper
Star Newspaper - It started, as usual, with words. Words! Words! Words! Words that hinted haughtily at superior intellect previously absent from the corridors of power. Words from honorable gentlemen to fellow university decorated men of high repute, at least one of whom would later be exposed as a self-obsessed fake. But just then no one cared if the near illiterate majority of the House audience failed to understand what was being spoken in our name. Our faith was strong, and faith was not faith if it accommodated questions or harbored doubt, however small.
So, on the remembered day in 1997 we listened in respectful silence to the governor general as he lip-serviced the prime minister’s words, awed by what we had wrought at the ballot box with our barely legible scribbles and our inartistic crosses: a new and brighter day for ourselves and for generations yet unborn. “My government is committed to extending democracy by making existing institutions more accountable and creating new mechanisms for stimulating greater public participation in the processes of government. Of necessity this will involve my government in new modalities of governance, in redesigning and relocating political authority within the parameters of our Constitution.”
Ultimately it was about making parliament “more accessible to the people, creating new possibilities for self-representation.” The new government, through its appointed mouthpiece, promised to commence work on the “restitution of community government.” It would also “initiate a thorough consultative process to engage the communities in dialogue on the parameters of these structures” and examine “the possibility of allowing in parliament the use of our native Creole. Kweyol say langue ek lam pep-la! Kweyol is the language and the soul of the people and parliament, as the supreme expression of the sovereign will of the people, must accommodate itself to that reality . . .”
If only we could’ve known then what we know now: Even as Sir George Mallet was mouthing the words of the newly elected clueless prime minister, Kenny Anthony (a history maker, having won just a few days earlier sixteen of the seventeen seats in parliament (and whom the underrated Robert Lee had in a lengthy panegyric costumed as the hero of Derek Walcott’s Ti Jean and His Brothers)as dragging us unresisting into the hell of Rochamel and Grynberg. So much for “making institutions more accountable; so much for stimulating greater public participation in the processes of governance.”
Of course an audience less drunk on anticipation and more trusting of its own natural instincts might have seen through the cheap cosmetics. We blindly applauded when the monster flashed us a glimpse of its true nature: “Corruption has been identified as the number one issue on the minds of Saint Lucians,” read Sir George, like a man entranced. “The extent of the public sentiment has found expression in popular culture . . . My government will, in conformity with the promises made during the election, establish a commission to investigate all cases of alleged corruption and to establish which cases warrant further legal action and prosecution. We are resolute to pursue this course of action because the people have cried out for justice, and once a blind eye is turned to corruption the institution is created for its unchecked proliferation.”
For 40 years Sir George Mallet had been the nation’s deputy prime minister—until he resigned and donated his seat in the name of party loyalty to a wholly undeserving younger candidate shortly before the 1997 general elections. And now, still in the name of duty, he read out the bad news about what was to befall the legendary individual with whom he had stood side by side through the sugarcane and “green gold” wars.
In April 1998 the Kenny Anthony government initiated a commission of inquiry, conducted by Sir Louis Blom-Cooper, into “a trio of events in public administration in St Lucia in the 1990s.” Sir John Compton and his 1995 replacement prime minister Vaughan Lewis were among those required to eat the fallout from embarrassing, hurriedly manufactured allegations that finally were marked “not upheld.”
The following is taken from the Blom-Cooper report: “From the limited but not unrevealing perspective of the Commission of Inquiry I have discerned a culture in St. Lucia of studied 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, unhampered by detection or, if and when uncovered, by disciplinary action . . . 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, which can be sustained only by training and education in public administration, is the key to the future stability and development in the territories of the Caribbean.”
Blom-Cooper’s words obviously fell on deaf ears. In 2009 the governor general had cause to appoint another commission of inquiry into “certain matters concerning the public service of Saint Lucia,” among them “the financial involvement of Saint Lucia in relation to the payment of US$17,092,350 to the Royal Merchant Bank of Trinidad and Tobago to satisfy debts owed by Frenwell Limited” and related losses suffered by the government of Saint Lucia. The three-man commission went to work on 29 January 2009 and reported on 19 October of the same year. Among its findings: “Our inquiry into the formation of Frenwell Limited shows it was allegedly formed at the request of the government of St. Lucia as a device to deal with payment of the sum of US$12,750,000 which was the total amount the government of Saint Lucia agreed to guarantee under the development and concession agreement of 17 December 1997.
The Deed of Guarantee and Indemnity executed in favor of the Royal Merchant Bank on 13 February 1998 did not mention the provision in the development and concession agreement of 17 December 1997 that in the event the government of Saint Lucia was called upon to pay under the guarantee it was entitled to an equity of corresponding value in Pigeon Point Limited. The Royal Merchant Bank was not a party to the development and concession agreement. Its recourse for payment of the sum of US$12,750,000 was to the Deed of Guarantee and Indemnity and the Put Option Agreements—which were all executed by Dr. Kenny Anthony.”
It was approved by the House on the motion of Dr. Kenny Anthony the prime minister and minister of finance on 17 December 2002 . . . The motion presented to parliament invoked as its authority the provisions of section 39 of the Finance (Administration) Act, subsection 1 (a). The reason for invoking 39 (1) (a) was because a part of the US$41 million was intended to meet expenditure on capital works which the government of Saint Lucia had undertaken but it was also intended that the other part should be used to refinance government’s obligations in respect of the former Hyatt Hotel. The truth was that the obligations the government intended to meet were the loan monies which Frenwell Limited had borrowed and the interest which the government was obliged to pay the Royal Merchant bank under the Deed of Guarantee and Indemnity and the Put Option Agreements.”
Then there is this: “We did not discern any attempt to protect the government and people from the loss. The prime minister and minister of finance had responsibility for this transaction whereby the money was lost. There was no supervision or control by the government over the construction, equipping and management of the resort . . . 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.”
The report also underscores the lack of involvement of St. Lucian public servants in the decision making process concerning the transaction. Much of what has been underscored here is repeated in the transaction commonly known as “the Grynberg matter.” As doubtless Sir Louis Blom-Cooper knew back in 1999, leopards really cannot change their spots. But we will come to that.
We certainly will!
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