KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent – Opposition Leader Arnhim Eustace said yesterday that the death of businessman David Bonadie is “a big loss”.
Bonadie, the owner of Bonadie’s Supermarket No.1 in Kingstown, died in Barbados between 6 and 7 a.m. Sunday while some of his relative were on board a plane to go visit him.
According to reports, Bonadie, a former senator and speaker of the House of Assembly, was flown to Barbados after suffering a stroke two weeks ago but did not survive a second stroke on Sunday.
“That is a big loss,” Eustace said on radio yesterday.
“He has been a very prominent businessman in this country, following in the footsteps of his father over the years. And it’s really a pity to see him pass. He was a strong supporter of ours also and he has been generous to us as a party and it really was for me a painful event to hear of his passing yesterday morning,” said Eustace, a former prime minister.
Bonadie was a senator and Deputy Speaker sometime in the mid 1980s after the New Democratic Party (NDP) came to office in 1984.
“I want to say to … all the family how grieved we are at his passing. It is a difficult time for any family but God, in the end, knows best and he is gone,” Eustace said, adding that he was “very, very saddened indeed”.
“Apart from being a supporter [of the NDP], he was a friend of mine in a personal way. And it is difficult to deal with and it will be difficult to deal with over the next while as funeral arrangements are made,” the East Kingstown representative said.
“I just want to say to them Almighty God is in charge. You never know the day or the hour and, in his case, it has come in the prime of his life, managing a very important business in this country,” Eustace said of the late owner of one of the nation’s three main locally-owned supermarket outlets.