Basseterre, St. Kitts, October 26th 2017 – Leader of the Opposition in St. Kitts and Nevis, the Right Hon. Dr. Denzil L Douglas has labeled as “hogwash” the statement issued by Prime Minister Dr. the Hon. Timothy Harris during a press conference on Wednesday.
In a response Thursday, Dr. Douglas, the former Prime Minister said the statement by Dr. Harris was “firstly intended to rekindle his failed leadership; secondly, it was to threaten with his dictatorial tactics to get me and the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party out of Parliament because the polls are indicating that my leadership was far superior to his.”
“Dr. Harris knows and has been advised that what he’s attempting to do in making ‘an application to the High Court seeking a declaration that the Leader of the Opposition is no longer eligible to continue sitting as a representative in our National Assembly and to vacate his seat’ is a waste of time of the Court and tax payers money,” said Dr. Douglas, who served for 20 years as prime minister.
Dr. Douglas said there is the “precedent in the St. Kitts and Nevis Court and the Eastern Caribbean Court of the Hon. Dwyer Astaphan case where the High Court ruled that you cannot remove an elected member of the House for any alleged reason of disqualification or otherwise other than by way of an Election Petition.”
“Whether or not I have a diplomatic passport, which for present purposes is not relevant, I owe no oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth of Dominica. I am not a citizen of Dominica. I am not a National of Dominica and have sworn no oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth of Dominica or any other country for that matter. I have made no application for citizenship of Dominica. The only country I have an oath of allegiance to and which I have dedicated my life to is the Federation of St Kitts and Nevis,” said Dr. Douglas.
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“He (Dr., Harris) has come to realise that his deception has been revealed and he now stands naked in his true state before the people of our country and before his Cabinet colleagues who wish that he was gone,” said the statement.
“In fact, Dr. Harris has taken corruption, cronyism and nepotism to unprecedented levels in St. Kitts and Nevis and throughout this entire region. He has brought untold hardship in the lives of our people, especially our young people through an absence of genuine economic policies to provide jobs and investment opportunities. He has brought scandal after scandal on our country and sullied our good name with the illegal Herpes Vaccine Scandal, the unethical Stem Cell Research at our main JNF Hospital, thereby exposing our entire population and our all-important health care workers to serious and unreasonable health risks, and declaring falsely that the government was not aware. He has also been threatening to build a high school on our most precious resource – the aquifer at Ponds Estate in East Basseterre exposing it to serious faecal contamination. And all this is happening when he is claiming to be the lead spokesperson on health matters in the CARICOM Quasi Cabinet,” said Dr. Douglas.
Stating that “these are the unforgiveable sins of Dr. Harris,” the Political Leader of the 83-year-old Labour Party boldly declared that Dr. Harris “has destroyed the economy of St. Kitts and Nevis with accompanying hardship on the lives of all of our people and more particularly those who work in the Tourism sector and the manufacturing enclaves with declining exports to external markets.”
He said Dr. Harris “has destroyed our once upon a time globally-leading Citizenship by Investment Programme in his narcissistic and corrupt attempts to create a Harris Re-Election Slush Fund and thereby compromising the due diligence security checks of applicants in his frantic desire to sell 4000 Kittitian-Nevisian passports in 6 months, cheaply at a price of US$37,000 each” and in the process “has increased the risk of exposure of our CIP to nefarious applicants, including money launderers and terrorists.”
Dr. Douglas disclosed that he has had the benefit recently of seeing the results of current political opinion polls conducted in St. Kitts and Nevis “that show that the outgoing Prime Minister, Dr. Timothy Harris is trailing way behind as the preferred leader of the country.”
“He is not by a long shot the preferred person to lead our people,” said Dr. Douglas, stating that the overwhelming view of the electorate is that Dr. Harris has failed as a leader of St. Kitts and Nevis.
“He has taken our country in the wrong direction and continues to do so; people are not better off but worse off under a Team Unity government led by Timothy Harris, although they promised the people better. St. Kitts and Nevis has not gone forward in advancing democracy, freedom of speech and civil liberties. The country has not gone forward in transparency and accountability. Instead, we have had untold corruption, cronyism and nepotism. We have gone backwards by miles!” said Dr. Douglas.
*This article was posted in its entirety as received by SKN PULSE. This media house does not correct any spelling or grammatical errors within press releases and (or) commentaries. The views contained within are not necessarily those of SKN PULSE.
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