By Marlon Bute
While Ralph Gonsalves pontificates on radio, questions from the ULP’s long tenure in office remain. They concern the expenditure of public money, the disposition of state lands, contracts, PetroCaribe, the Argyle International Airport, the National Lotteries Authority and other matters which became the subject of considerable controversy during almost twenty-five years of ULP government.
There is now a growing clamour among Vincentians for an accounting.
I first wrote this piece several weeks ago and put it aside. There was no urgency on my part to publish it. Other matters occupied my attention, and this one simply waited its turn. What brings me back to it is the frequency with which the issue is now being raised and the increasing force with which it has entered public discussion.
The recent disclosure in Parliament by Housing Minister Andrew John brought the matter into sharper focus.
According to the minister, a public servant received a house under the previous administration despite not being affected by Hurricane Beryl, being neither poor nor indigent, and being financially capable of paying for a house. The recipient, he said, has now been asked to pay.
Disclosures of this kind inevitably invite questions about what a fuller examination of the records might reveal.
In May, in my published piece, “When the roof is lifted: corruption, propaganda and the crumbling foundation of the state”, I wrote about what I considered an emerging pattern of state-sanctioned corruption under the former ULP administration.
There were disclosures concerning contractors allegedly paid for houses that were never built and questions surrounding the distribution of building materials. There was also the National Lotteries Authority and the EC$250,000 reportedly paid to a contractor for work at the Langley Park Playing Field, a payment reportedly approved eight days before the general election and cashed the following day, although the work had not been done.
I wondered then whether we were looking at isolated incidents or evidence of something more pervasive.
Jomo Sanga Thomas has since entered the discussion in considerably stronger terms. Writing recently about the abandoned cross-country road, on which millions of dollars were spent, he described it as “a clear case of misbehaviour in public office”.
Thomas has also called for forensic examination of expenditure under the former administration and argued that, where the evidence calls for it, matters should be placed before the proper authorities.
His intervention adds weight to a discussion already taking place across the country. Vincentians want to know how their resources were managed and whether controversies that have lingered for years can finally be settled by an examination of the records.
There is nothing sudden about this demand. In many respects, it is the natural consequence of a standard cultivated over many years by the NDP itself.
Under Arnhim Eustace, accountability became a recurring theme of the party’s politics. Eustace was, in my estimation, an unrelenting ethicist. His insistence upon probity in public life was reflected throughout the leadership of the NDP and echoed by its supporters. Those entrusted with the affairs and resources of the state, the argument went, must account for their stewardship.
Dr. Godwin Friday inherited that tradition and sustained it throughout his years as leader of the opposition. Under his leadership, the NDP repeatedly raised questions about the Argyle International Airport and the International Airport Development Company, PetroCaribe, the National Lotteries Authority and other areas through which substantial sums of public money passed.
Accountability was not some peripheral campaign promise. It became part of the party’s case against the former ULP administration and ultimately part of its case for change.
PetroCaribe is particularly important. Venezuela eventually forgave St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ remaining debt, including EC$189 million in 2022, an extraordinary act of generosity for which this country should remain grateful.
But vast sums passed through that arrangement, and Friday himself, while leader of the opposition, asked where the hundreds of millions had gone. Forgiveness of the debt did not answer how the money was received, managed and spent.
Much the same applies to the Argyle International Airport, the largest capital undertaking in our history and one into which enormous public resources were poured. The NDP, while in opposition, repeatedly insisted upon proper accounting for that expenditure. These were positions maintained over years and across successive leaderships.
It should therefore surprise no one that people now expect the principles championed in opposition to find expression in government. This is not impatience with a new administration. It is the reasonable consequence of the political case the NDP made to the country for years.
That history is also why I have confidence in Prime Minister Friday. I have followed him over the years and believe him to be a thoughtful and deliberate man, possessed of considerable integrity. His record and the tradition he inherited from Eustace give me reason to believe that what he defended in opposition will be honoured in government.
That will necessarily involve accounting for the almost 25 years which preceded this administration. During that period billions of dollars passed through the ULP regime’s hands. Contracts were awarded, state lands distributed, houses built and allocated, state corporations administered substantial public resources, and some of the largest infrastructure projects in our history were undertaken.
If the money that passed through PetroCaribe was responsibly managed and spent, the records should show that. The same applies to AIA, the National Lotteries Authority, the Housing and Land Development Corporation, BRAGSA, National Properties and other areas about which concerns have persisted for the ULP’s long tenure.
The value of accountability extends beyond whatever an examination of the former administration may reveal. It is part of how a state matures and good governance takes root. Proper scrutiny of public expenditure discourages corruption, strengthens institutions, and helps preserve scarce resources for developing the country and transforming the lives of its people.
The same standard must apply to those who governed yesterday, those who govern today and those who will govern tomorrow. Public resources belong to the people; governments are merely their custodians for a time. Examining how those resources are used should be an ordinary feature of government, not an exceptional exercise following a change of political power.
Each generation ought to inherit stronger institutions than the generation before it, strengthen them further and pass them on. That is part of the political civilisation we should be trying to build.
These days and increasingly so, I detect not simply a desire to revisit old political battles, but a determination that matters raised over many years should not drift into political folklore without ever being conclusively examined.
Prime Minister Friday’s record should give the country confidence that he understands what is expected. The accounting for which his party argued for so many years is now for his government to deliver.
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