KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent – Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves told Parliament on Tuesday that state-owned media did not contact him on Monday for an update after the fire at Financial Complex on Saturday.
Gonsalves said that while the privately owned SVG Broadcasting Corporation interviewed him at home — where he worked on Monday — the state-owned Agency for Public Information (API) and the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC Radio) did not contact him.
“… SVGTV found me at home to do an interview with me so that they can inform the viewers. And naturally, they would have used that on their sister radio station,” Gonsalves told legislators.
“I just want to record to Parliament that neither API nor the national radio station called me to find out,” he added.
“They apparently heard my voice at a public meeting on Sunday night as I was informing people about it and thought that it was sufficient,” Gonsalves further said.
“Obviously, things happen on an on-going basis,” he, however, added.
“Now, I am not criticising anyone in the leadership of those two institutions. I am just recording that it did not happen,” he explained.
“… I didn’t see why I had to call the radio station or API and transmit it to everybody else. That’s why they exist,” Gonsalves said.
“I know, having said that, I have made perhaps a number of critics, who would criticise me about other things but not criticise me for the reason what I have spoken truthfully,” the Prime Minister added.
“But I feel that when I have been in this business long as I have been that I must be able to talk freely and speak the truth,” he said.
“Those who are aspiring, might have some reason to bridle their tongue and speak politically correct but I don’t really have that encumbrance.
“And maybe when I have gone past 65, as I have done – and some have said I am now a senior citizen — maybe senior citizens can aspire to speak like that, particularly those who are not aspiring,” Gonsalves told Parliament.