Grace plays race, gender card amidst contract scrutiny

The ruling Unity Labour Party’s (ULP) candidate for North Windward, Hospital Administrator Grace Walters, says it is not unusual for the government to award contracts to state workers.

She suggested at the party’s rally in Biabou on Sunday that the EC$144,000 one-year contract she received to do consultancy for the hospital that is being built at Arnos Vale was being questioned because she is a woman and a “Carib”.

Opposition spokesperson on health, Daniel Cummings, made the contract public on Saturday at the New Democratic Party’s (NDP) campaign rally in North Union.

“While all the hell you are catching in health care, since January of this year, 2025, a lady called Grace Walters signed a contract with the government of this country, a contract for one year in the first instance, a contract that pays her EC$144,000,” said Cummings, who is seeking election to a fourth five-year term as MP for West Kingstown.

“Now, that is not bad, you’ll say, until you hear what she is being paid for. What in your eyes, has Grace Walters been doing for the last six months, other than campaigning up and down the length and breadth of this country?” Cummings said.

“What does Grace Walters know about anything to do good with health care? What this wicked government has done? They have given this woman responsibility to advise on how the new health care system should be run,” Cummings said.

However, Walters suggested that the contract was being mentioned because the opposition could not respond to the improvements she said were being made to Milton Cato Memorial Hospital, the nation’s main healthcare facility.

“Remember, they were telling you that the louvres were falling out and all of this, you can go down and have a look,” she told party supporters, noting that she had also mentioned the hospital’s internship programme.

“I told you about our less than 1% infection control rate. So, because they couldn’t get away with that, they came with something else,” Walters said, before going on to emphasise her qualifications.

“Comrades, I am Grace to you, but to Daniel Cummings, I am Dr. Grace Walters,” said Walters, who has a doctorate in health care administration and management and master’s degrees in nursing and health care administration, and a bachelor’s degree in nursing, but is not a medical doctor.

“I’ve spent many sleepless nights. I’ve sacrificed a lot to obtain my education because my party, the Unity Labour Party, believes that women should empower themselves.

“It is not unusual for anyone who works with the government to be given a contract. It’s not uncommon. It’s not unheard of. It’s a regular thing. There’s a minister of finance,” Walters said and looked in the direction of Finance Minister Camillo Gonsalves.

“I applied for and was granted no-pay leave, and if the lazy people on the NDP would do their investigation rather than take something that the colonial people give them to read, they would have gotten this information. They wouldn’t have embarrassed themselves so much.”

The ULP identified Walters as its candidate in May 2023 and formally selected her in February this year.

As a public sector worker, Walters has to take no-pay leave or resign her job in order to contest the election.

Walters said she “applied for a leave without a salary in order to take up an offer that was given to me because I was qualified. I am qualified for that offer,” she said.

It is not clear whether the post was advertised or if it was offered only to Walters.

“I don’t know what the problem is. Is it because I am a country woman? Is it because I am a woman? Because, you know, they don’t like women. Is it because I’m a Carib? Am I only worth $500, Mr. Cummings?” Walters said.

She said Cummings had reminded her of the days when the NDP was in office and “the NDP representative drove from Kingstown to Rabacca to take my dad’s truck off work…

“You reminded me that at one time he drove from Kingstown to tell a contractor to remove Mr. Cordice from work because he did not support the NDP. You reminded me, Mr. Cummings, that Mr. Brendan Child was denied a scholarship because he was from Sandy Bay….

“Mr. Cummings, you reminded me of the reason that people from the country will forever keep the NDP in opposition,” Walters said.

The ULP has been representing North Windward since 2001 and Walters will face off in the Nov. 27 race with the NDP’s Shevern John, who is also Garifuna and is a former teacher.

John did not reapply for a teaching or public sector job after losing the 2020 election by 62 votes.

Instead, she accepted an offer to become an opposition senator, a position in which her salary was about half what she had been making as a teacher.

Walters said:

“Comrades, I pity my opponent who is on their team, because I know that at this moment, she’s serving their purpose. They have no plans to uplift her. They have no plans to put her anything because they hate women. They’ve attacked almost every woman on this team, starting with our dear sister, Keisal [Peters],” she said, referring to the ULP’s West Kingstown candidate.

Bombshell or ‘pop-pop’?

“Comrades, why did they think that they can attack Grace Walters? Our comrades have been speaking to them, have been asking them questions. Why not answer the questions? Why come at the little Carib girl from Sandy Bay? Is it because I think I’m easy picking?”

Hours before the rally on Saturday, the NDP circulated a flyer saying that it had a “bombshell” to drop during the event.

“I laughed when I saw the bombshell that they had,” Walters said. “I asked comrade leader this morning, ‘Was I the bombshell?’ He said, ‘Yes, you are the bombshell.’

“To me, that is one of those little, you know, those things that … you drop it and you pop it,” she said.

“Tha nah no bombshell, because that thing was on internet months ago. Where was Daniel Cummings? Lazy. He didn’t even have the time to go and do proper research.”

Walters said that before the ULP came to office, “people from the countryside were not given any priority.

“Daniel Cummings was the head of the CWSA when we did not have a garbage truck coming up to countryside to help us to dispose our garbage properly. What about that? Mr. Cummings, now you’re showing that you really hate country people.”

Responding to something that Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said to her, Walters said:

“There you go. It was lodged in the registry. Why is it a bombshell, Mr. Cummings? Everybody knows. My salary is in the estimates, which is online. This contract was in the registry. If you had done your homework, sir you would have seen it there; it would not have been a bombshell.”

Walters told her constituents that they have work to do to continue to keep the ULP in office and went on to identify some areas, including in fishing, recreation, and revitalising community spirit.

“We nah ha the time for the hate and the bad energy. We got our mind on victory. We’ve got our minds on progress. We’ve got our minds on election day, when we will vote solidly for the star,” she said, mentioning the ULP’s symbol.