Accountability is not witch-hunting

By *Jomo Sanga Thomas

(“Plain Talk” Dec. 12, 2025)

Ralph Gonsalves’ Unity Labour Party controlled St, Vincent and the Grenadines for 24-plus years. This period is longer than a generation. To put it in context, Vincentians aged 35 or younger may not remember any political leader other than Ralph Gonsalves. During that period, the Unity Labour Party government completed several projects that the general public will long remember as meaningful and necessary.  

The early efforts at educational development, the scholarships and other financial support for university and higher education given to children of the poor and vulnerable, the vision and foresight of Gonsalves in pressing ahead with the construction of the Argyle International Airport amidst tremendous national sacrifice, the policy of 100% mortgages that allowed many public employees the opportunity to build or buy homes at an early age, the construction of the Medical and Diagnostic Centre at Georgetown and the provision of dialysis treatment for kidney patients have all contributed to making life just a little better for Vincentians. These advancements represented development on the margins. The lives of the majority of our people remained fundamentally unchained. 

However, at its core, Gonsalves and his clan’s men ran our country like a family business. They maintain an iron grip on all things related to the Argyle airport. SVG under Gonsalves’ rule was a grifters’ paradise. The airport is misnamed. It could have been fittingly called the Gonsalves family airport. He boldly proclaimed that the ULP is a family and gravely warned those who enter its orbit not to drift for fear of political retribution. Many who cravenly stoked his ego, facilitated his follies and vanities, turned a blind eye to his misogyny and worse, were rewarded handsomely.  

It’s for precisely these reasons that any new leadership in SVG must conduct a serious, painstaking investigation into the depths of the deep-seated official corruption that has spread like a virus through all facets of Vincentian life. 

The divisions, pain and deprivation that prevent the unleashing of our people’s true potential could have been much worse. In many respects, only the Teachers’ Union, Public Workers Union and the lion-hearted justices of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court stood between Gonsalves’ suffocating and dominating control over, as he termed it, “every square inch” of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Had it not been for these brave souls, Vincentians would have been existing in a worse, darker place.


In the last decade and a half, the Court frequently slapped down Gonsalves’ unlawful and illegal abuse of the Vincentian people. Recall the court’s rescue of Kenroy Johnson, Elvis Daniel and Bash Thomas in what became known as the NDP teachers case, Otto Sam dismissal, where a distinguished high court judge mockingly asked Gonsalves’ lawyers, “You mean to tell me you want to fire him for writing a letter?” before ruling his dismissal unlawful and illegal, the wickedly cruel vaccine mandate, when Gonsalves commanded Vincentians to “take the Jab or lose your job” that resulted in many persons suffering loss of livelihood, death, blood clots, strokes and other adverse event. Only last week, the court was in his face again, finding that the appointment of the clerk and deputy clerk to the House of Assembly violated the civil service rules and regulations. Vincentian voters took his job as payback for the savage vaccine policy on Nov. 27.

But we digressed. The Unity Labour Party government loved monuments; they loved construction and waxed orgasmic whenever there was money to borrow or spend. And spend they did with abandon. It is that wild borrowing and spending that the new administration needs to investigate thoroughly. 

It is a proven fact that wherever there is a big project, the opportunity for graft and corruption looms large. We also know that whenever the ULP government investigated local big companies with millions in revenue, it found they were not paying their fair share of taxes. Audits of the accounts of Cable and Wireless (Flow), Digicel and Courts are cases in point.

Investigations are urgently needed into several government operations. Among them are the Argyle International Airport, the Kingstown Port, the PetroCaribe Fund, the National Lottery, the huge loans from Taiwan, which call for no conditions, guardrails or oversight, the over EC$1 billion “spent” on road construction over the last decade, as well as money secured from the Kuwaiti, Saudi and OPEC funds. Over the years, Solidarity Car Park must have collected millions in revenue. This money was intended for labour solidarity, but was in the tight grip of the maximum leader’s allies. Combined, these projects amount to billions of dollars. They offer opportunities for those with greedy eyes and sticky fingers to misappropriate borrowed or grant money intended for the public good.

Hundreds of millions of dollars from the PetroCaribe fund were spent with neither trace nor accounting. By 2022, the PetroCaribe company, whose money never went into the Consolidated Fund, was declared bankrupt. The Argyle International Airport cost EC$750 million; Kingstown Port EC$700 million. Hundreds of millions were earmarked for roads, yet little to show for it by way of road improvements. Millions were disbursed from the National Lottery. It is now time to find out whether our national resources were spent honestly and responsibly, and given to those who were truly deserving.

Plain Talk has no doubt that a thorough investigation will uncover acts of negligence, incompetence, and wilful, intentional wrongdoing that are harmful, unlawful, and illegal.  We remain confident that, once proper investigations are conducted, some people will go to jail or be forced to repay all their ill-gotten gains. 

In the run-up to the last election, many opposition politicians vowed to perform financial investigations and forensic audits of the government’s projects and enterprises. A civic-minded and conscious population must remain alert and continue to demand that these promises made to the public are honoured.

There is no place for mean-spiritedness, witch-hunting, discrimination or revenge. Now is the time for each of us to recommit to national development so as to uplift and empower the least fortunate and vulnerable among us.

*Jomo Sanga Thomas is a lawyer, journalist, social commentator and a former Speaker of the House of Assembly in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

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