Former MP, businessman Ken Boyea dies  

Former MP and national athlete, businessman Ormiston Arnold “Ken” Boyea, died on Wednesday — New Year’s Day.

He was 87.

Boyea, who is a first cousin of Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves and father of Luke Boyea of Hot 97 FM, died at his home in Prospect after a period of ill health.

He was elected MP for Central Kingstown on the Unity Labour Party ticket (ULP) in 1998 and served on the opposition benches until 2001.

However, by 2001, Boyea had fallen out with the ULP and founded the People’s Progressive Movement, which contested the general election that year but failed to win a seat, receiving 2.6% of the popular votes.

The ULP won the elections under Gonsalves’ leadership and has remained in office with him at the helm since.

The PPM became defunct sometime after the 2001 polls.

However, Boyea enjoyed more success in business as detailed in a biographical sketch by Luke Browne, published in Searchlight newspaper on May 23, 2014.

Boyea, who was trained in engineering in England, was chief engineer at VINLEC, when the Commonwealth Development Corporation owned the electricity company. 

However, in 1977, businessman P.H. Veira headhunted him to manage the East Caribbean Flour Mills, of which the Vieras are a major shareholder.

That relationship ended on a sour note with Boyea later suing the company for wrongful dismissal.

Boyea brought the KFC franchise to St. Vincent and the Grenadines in 1986 and held it until 2015 when the restaurant closed after months of complaints by customers about the quality of the food.

Boyea blamed the delay in the ULP’s promised new city at Arnos Vale for the closure of KFC, an assertion that Gonsalves rejected.

The businessman had invested EC$16 million in a new building at Arnos Vale that housed a KFC restaurant. 

In 2010, he opened at that building a second branch of Aunt Jobe’s Market, which he had founded five years earlier — and later sold. 

The KFC franchise has since been awarded to a new entity, which has opened two of the fast food outlets in the country.

Boyea’s other business ventures included W.J. Abbotts and Sons Ltd., Fine Foods Ltd. and Pizza Hut, none of which are still in operation. 

Boyea was the first-ever Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean and he was SVG’s Entrepreneur of the Year 1996.

Boyea represented SVG in cricket at the senior level and was also a national lawn tennis doubles champion (in partnership with Allie Lynch).