Gonsalves criticises spending he defended in gov’t

Leader of the Opposition Ralph Gonsalves is scoffing at the Godwin Friday’s government’s allocation of EC$2.1 million for vehicles to be used by the prime minister and repair of the official residence of the Prime Minister, which Gonsalves vacated in November, after 20 years of occupancy.

Gonsalves is criticising the allocation almost 15 years after he, as prime minister, defended an EC$1.5 million allocation for a fourth SUV for the prime minister’s fleet and for the renovation of the official residence.

“And I say this, from what I understand, what they want to do, they used to talk about Ralph fixing it up, it’s Saddam Palace,” Gonsalves said while debating the 2026 Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure on Thursday.

“I don’t know whose this one will be — Donald Trump? That number is going to balloon,” he told Parliament.

He admitted that the Official Residence of the Prime Minister was not in the best condition when he vacated.

“It needed some repairs, but liveable. I live in it,” he said.

He noted that EC$600,000 has been allocated for the purchase of vehicles for use by the prime minister, noting that they will be imported duty-free.

“If you were to pay all the duties on them, it’s $1.3 million,” he said, adding that the vehicles she used as prime minister before his tenure ended with the Nov. 27 general election were “perfectly functioning” and “had another couple of years going for them.”

In the 2011 budget, the Gonsalves government allocated EC$1.54 million of the EC$793.9 million budget for services related to the Office of the Prime Minister.

Now Deputy Prime Minister St. Clair Leacock, then an opposition MP, criticised the allocation for Gonsalves’ fourth vehicle and house repairs, saying he was “getting too expensive to mind”.

Leacock had said that Gonsalves was “almost sounding like a government within a government”.

Leacock had gone on to say:

“In this hard guava crop, now that we are trying to do more with less, Gonsalves had three SUVs in his fleet – G7, G77, G777 – but was looking for another vehicle for his residence for $80,000. Vehicle upon vehicle, Mr. Prime Minister?” Leacock had asked.

Leacock had noted that there was a further EC$500,000 for special development projects, EC$5000,000 for another project, EC$260,000 for refurbishment of the residence, and EC$200,000 allocated for security quarters at the Prime Minister’s Residence, which is separated from the Old Montrose Police Station by a fence.

However, Gonsalves had defended the allocation, saying that the official residence was old and although it had been renovated before he occupied it in March 2004, three years after coming to office, the building had “serious design flaws”.

“There are parts of the residence that are leaking. I don’t have to go into the details; it would shame the country to know,” he had said.

“I didn’t know that in the year 2011 I had to come here to defend some money to buy a vehicle for the Residence of the Prime Minister; to repair the house or to provide better accommodation for the security officers who put their lives on the line in respect of the protection of the prime minister, Gonsalves had stated.

“I am really sorry that the prime minister of a proud and independent country has to be dragged into this mire when the member for Central Kingstown says that I am becoming too expensive to mind,” he had told Parliament.

Meanwhile, in winding up the Estimates Debate last week, Prime Minister Friday told lawmakers that a few days after his party won the general election, he went to the Prime Minister’s Residence expecting to make “just some cosmetic” changes, such as “to paint a little bit here and put some curtains and so forth, and change some linen and some upholstery”.

However, on arrival, he saw that “it’s quite clear that the place is not in a state to move in”.

Friday further told Parliament that the allocation for new vehicles was in the budget before he came to office.

“They tell me that this was something they had there before. They were telling the former occupants of the office that the vehicles were old enough now. One is 9, 10 years old. Usually, they change them after five years,” Friday said, adding that the other vehicle is older than five years.

“There are two vehicles that they’re getting. They say, ‘Prime Minister. You can’t have one. You have to have two at least, so that you’re not, you can distinguish — whatever — for security reasons,” the prime minister said.

“But that’s their call. … Right now, we’re driving a smaller vehicle. That’s fine by me. It’s not my call. It’s their call. I take their judgment on it.”