St. Lucia Star

Written By: [1] Maryanna Williams 

[2]

Opposition Leader Kenny Anthony checks his BlackBerry as the prime minister speaks on a motion that condemns Anthony’s tenure as prime minister. His wife Rose Marie Antoine and former Labour Party Chairman Tom Walcott (background).

The tension in the House of Assembly on the morning of Tuesday October 27 was palpable. A packed gallery had come to hear a publicly battered former prime minister defend himself against allegations that he had wasted millions of the country’s tax dollars on a little known private company called Frenwell Ltd, inter alia. As the MPs took their respective seats it became clear that the leader of the opposition would be the only member of the last Labour government in attendance. Philip J Pierre had skipped town. Presumably he had more important commitments.The prime minister, in presenting the resolution that would dominate the debate of the day, accused his predecessors, the Labour government led by Kenny Anthony, of maladministration that cost the country millions of dollars over Rochamel, the NCA and Road Development Projects RDP 1&2. The prime minister commenced the debate in combative style tossing allegations of wrongdoing, deceit, trickery and dishonesty over his handling of the Rochamel affair. Never had Stephenson King been so vicious toward a parliamentary colleague.

Surprisingly, it was the leader of the opposition who was next on his feet to respond to the prime minister’s vitriolic attack. I say surprisingly because the leader of the opposition was yet to hear from the main government spokesmen: Rufus Bousquet, Guy Joseph, and Richard Frederick. Under the House rules no member is allowed to speak on a motion more than once except on a point of clarification or a point of
order. The one exception is for the mover of a motion who is allowed to return to the floor for a second time to close the debate. So why then was Kenny Anthony taking the floor so early in the day? He knew that having taken the floor when he did would leave him no opportunity to rebut the contributions from the earlier mentioned main government attack dogs.

Not a good defense move for a lawyer. Or perhaps there was no intention to put up a defense. As it turned out Kenny Anthony’s fifty-minutes-long presentation was unimpressive, except for his first fifteen minutes when he again exposed the incompetence of the attorney general. He had prepared a motion for resolution as a statutory instrument (SI) without a related enabling Act of Parliament. Saved by the Speaker’s advice, the motion was amended and presented without the SI reference by the prime minister for debate and resolution. Kenny Anthony’s first attempt at an escape from the House had been effectively foiled.

He made no satisfactory attempt to answer three salient questions. No surprise. He had also avoided the opportunities presented at the Commission of Inquiry and previous parliamentary sittings to
do so. Why did the former minister of finance not bring the first government guarantee agreement with Pigeon Point Ltd before parliament for approval? Why did he not bring the second guarantee (Put Option) in favour of the Royal Merchant Bank for the loans of Frenwell Ltd for parliamentary approval? Why, having given the guarantee for Frenwell’s loans, the government failed to put in place measures to avoid misuse of the loan funds of $35 million?

Listening to the opposition leader on Tuesday, it is easy to conclude that he is truly the embodiment of contradictions. In answer to questions about the operations of Frenwell Ltd, a private company and the recipient of a $35 million dollar bank loan which the taxpayers of this country ended up paying, he unfairly redirected the questions to the lawyers who formed the company. Of course the lawyers had nothing to do with the operations of Frenwell Ltd; they only formed the company. But the disturbing truth about Frenwell’s incorporation is that it was done at the instance of Kenny Anthony. Or, as the Ramsahoye report put it, by “the government.”

The opposition leader accused one government MP of accepting a motor vehicle as a gift from a businessman. Not for the first time, the Leader of the Opposition forgot that back in 2007 he too had received a motor vehicle
(SUV) from a group of business people from his constituency, for services rendered as the parliamentary representative. At the time it was an unusual gesture which caused much consternation among his colleagues and the general public.

The Leader of the Opposition insisted that there was nothing in the Ramsahoye report that “condemned” him, a specious comment, for the report did not make references to the minister of finance by name. But everyone knows the person responsible for the loss of $35 million dollars was the then minister of finance Kenny Anthony, who signed the guarantee on behalf of the government of St Lucia. He was quick to claim the report ‘exonerated’ him, but wasted no time besmirching the character of the Chair of Commission of Inquiry. He likened Ramsahoye to Sir Allen Stanford and reminded the House that both men were knighted by the same government.

His big issue was the illegality of the Statutory Instrument condemning his Labour government of maladministration. As his legal authority he smugly quoted a recent case involving the Constituency Boundaries Commission of St Kitts in which the court ruled that a secondary legislative instrument had no legal effect without the relevant parent legislation: an Act of Parliament. But what he failed to reveal was that he was one of two defense lawyers in the cited case. To hear him in the House, one would never believe that he was only recently on the wrong side of the very principle he accused Stephenson King of running foul of.

Shamelessly, he cited the Ramsahoye recommendation that all guarantees have the backing of parliamentary approval. Nothing new, he said the Finance Act had already covered that. Then why did he not follow the rules?

Into the fiftieth minute of the leader of the opposition’s contribution, the Speaker reminded him that he had “ten more minutes.” Prompted by the leader of the opposition, the member for Vieux Fort north proposed an additional one hour of speaking time. The motion was taken to a vote and defeated: five for, six against. Kenny Anthony had been given a way out and wasted little time grabbing it. Predictably, the other opposition members followed their protesting leader out of the House. Kenny Anthony had avoided yet another chance to explain Rochamel, the NCA scandal etc.

Kenny Anthony is clearly not leadership material. By all the report underscored he cannot be trusted. It is very sad that in the Rochamel saga Kenny Anthony misled parliamentarians and the people of St Lucia over a matter which caused huge and avoidable financial loss in excess of $35 million. I have signed off on Kenny Anthony. Dear reader, your witness.