Brewster tells untruths while saying NDP ‘lie’

Central Leeward MP Orando Brewster on Saturday misrepresented the opposition New Democratic Party’s (NDP) position on crime fighting, even as he accused the party of being liars.

He also distorted Central Kingstown MP, St. Clair Leacock’s view on the salaries of parliamentarians and government ministers, as well as his proposal for financing and running the new hospital at Arnos Vale, which is being built using a US$125 million loan from Taiwan.

Brewster said that instead of joining with the government to address the crime situation, the NDP erected a billboard “and advertise crime”.

However, the reality is that Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, head of the Unity Labour Party (ULP) administration, of which Brewster is a part, had repeatedly rejected the opposition’s offer to work with the government to tackle crime.

Speaking as the ULP kicked off its national campaign in Layou on Saturday, Brewster said he would examine the NDP and the ULP.

“There is a party that has a clear vision, a clear plan, and has accomplished a lot that you can testify of,” said Brewster, who is seeking a second term in office.

“But there’s also a lazy party called the New Democratic Party that has no vision. They don’t have no plans, and they can’t talk about anything that they did for 17 years while they was in government,” he said of the NDP that was booted out of office in March 2001.

Brewster, a preacher who holds a degree in medicine but has not completed his internship and, therefore, cannot practice as a doctor, is facing the challenge from Conroy Huggins of the NDP.

Huggins, a preacher and educator who lost his teaching job under the ULP’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, is trying to unseat Brewster, who won the seat by 503 votes, to keep Central Leeward in the Labour column, where it has been since 1994.

Brewster told ULP supporters that everyone knows that crime is a serious issue around the world, across the region and in St. Vincent.

“… but I want to pay attention, because when we had an opportunity, the New Democratic Party, instead of them saying, ‘Well, let me come on board and see how we can help with the issue of crime’, you know what they do? They went to Gibson Corner and put up a billboard and advertise crime. Them ah the people you want to govern you in St. Vincent,” Brewster said.

In May 2024, the NDP erected a billboard in Gibson Corner, saying there were 52 homicides in SVG in 2023 and that crime is out of control.

While the billboard said there were 52 homicides in the country in 2023, there were actually 55, of which the authorities classified 52 as murders.

The opposition had erected other billboards highlighting social issues, but some people, many of them known supporters of the government, said that one at Gibson Corner was targeting visitors travelling to Sandals hotel in Buccament Bay.

Opposition Leader and NDP President Godwin Friday defended his party’s actions, saying the billboard had forced Vincentians to have an “uncomfortable conversation” about crime in the country.

Before and even after erecting the billboard, Friday had repeatedly offered to work with the government to address the crime situation in the country.

As early as September 2018, almost two years after Friday became the opposition leader, Gonsalves said he was not willing to join with the opposition to tackle the nation’s crime problem.

Gonsalves, who is also Minister of National Security, made his position clear two days after the Minister of Agriculture Saboto Caesar’s wife was robbed at gunpoint outside their home while holding their child in her arms, a crime that the opposition condemned.

The crime also took place on a day when Friday led supporters of the NDP in a walk from Georgetown to Kingstown to highlight the issue of high crime and joblessness in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The previous week, he had walked from Fitz Hughes to Kingstown.

“Lemme ask you this: An opposition which addresses crime in an opportunistic way, how could you have a commonality of discussion with that?” Gonsalves had said then.

He said this was his position because former Opposition Leader Arnhim Eustace had betrayed his confidence on a national security matter.

Gonsalves said he did not trust Friday.

In August 2021, Gonsalves was struck in the head while walking to Parliament in Kingstown among people protesting against the law his government was about to pass to bring the COVID-19 mandate into effect.

Gonsalves blamed Friday for his injury and vowed not to talk to him, but Friday denied any involvement in or responsibility for the PM’s injury.

The prime minister maintained his position despite repeated offers by Friday and the NDP to work with the government to address the crime situation.

In July 2023, after the mass murder of five males in Kingstown, Friday said the crime situation in needs focused attention but Gonsalves seemed too busy for it.

He was speaking hours after Gonsalves, who is in Morocco on an official visit, said via the media that his government would get to the bottom of the mass murder.

The opposition leader said that his offer to the government of a bipartisan approach to crime fighting was still on the table.

“… this is such an important matter; it is such a terrible scourge in our country that everybody has to come together and work to bring it under control. And you have to show that there is leadership on it,” Friday said.

Brewster misrepresents Leacock MPs, ministers’ pay 

Also, in his speech on Saturday, Brewster said that he pays attention “very closely” in Parliament.

“St. Clair Leacock says to us in parliament that politicians need an increase in salary because he wants more money,” Brewster said.

He was referring to a presentation that Leacock made in Parliament earlier this year as he addressed the issue of pensions and how they are calculated.

Leacock said it was incongruous that some top government officials had salaries that are higher than the ministers, who are their bosses.

Leacock said that this serves to undermine the minister’s authority, even as they are MPs, and therefore, members of the highest institution in the country.

What Brewster did not say in Layou is that Gonsalves supported Leacock’s argument and even amplified it, before suggesting that opposition lawmakers write and sign a letter proposing a solution to the situation.

Social commentator Renrick Rose used his column in Searchlight newspaper to thank Leacock for raising the issue, saying that remuneration for parliamentarians and ministers of government is an issue he (Rose) had been “ducking for years now”.

Brewster, Walters skew Leacock’s hospital financing proposal 

Brewster and Grace Walters, the hospital administrator and MP for North Windward, also misrepresented Leacock’s suggestion about financing the construction and running of the US$78 million hospital that the government is building in Arnos Vale.

“He said that when we finish the brand-new hospital that we’re building at Arnos Vale, we should privatise it,” Brewster said.

“You know, when you privatise a hospital, wah does happen? It mean you can’t go and pay $5 for your medication. It gonna cost you more. You can’t go and pay $20 for X ray. It gonna cost you more,” the Central Leeward MP said.

Meanwhile, Walters, in yet another introduction of herself to voters since being selected as the candidate in March, said that constituents know her as the hospital administrator.

She said the ULP believes that health care is a right and not a privilege and is not a money-making commodity.

Walters, a first-time candidate, said she has served in several areas of health care since 1999.

“I know the true cost of health care. So, comrades, when I heard a member from the other side said that they intend to sell our hospital, me belly cut me. I couldn’t believe it,” she said using a colloquial expression meaning that someone was shocked by something.

However, what Leacock was actually proposing was partnering with medical schools to reduce the amount of borrowing to finance the construction and maintenance of a hospital.

Leacock had said that the EC$334 million loan from Taiwan used to finance the hospital will attract EC$200 million in interest.

He said that more and more medical schools want to come to St. Vincent to open up universities and colleges, and these educational institutions want access to hospitals as part of their training.

He suggested that the government should have approached these medical schools to provide a percentage of the financing of the hospital, thereby reducing the burden on taxpayers.

“Therefore, if they have that interest, and you have 4, 5, 6, of them and they want so bad to be here, let them take up 10%, 15% of the cost of the hospital. So, they own the hospital, they pay for the hospital, and we get the benefit of the hospital without the cost of the hospital being a saddle around the head and neck of the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines,” Leacock said.