Officers of PM Harris’ PLP express concerns ahead of inaugural convention, Condor threatens legal action

Photo  – Launching of the PLP in 2013 – (left to right) Clecton Phillip; Dr. Timothy Harris; Sam Condor; Venelma Hanley and Douglas Wattley

BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, March 20^th 2017 – Following an announcement that Prime Minister Dr. Timothy’s Harris’ Peoples Labour Party (PLP) is to hold its inaugural convention in his constituency on Sunday March 25^th, present executive members are expressing concern over the still unresolved matter of accountability of millions of dollars in campaign funds and prioritisation of important promises.

Douglas Wattley, PLP Chairman and Clecton Phillip, General Secretary of the PLP and former Press Secretary to Prime Minister Harris, have been complaining for several months about election campaign funds given to the PLP during the 2015 general election campaign which to date remain unaccounted for.

Phillip told WINNFM 98.9 FM) that a decision was taken in February 2016 following a report that monies were collected by a senior member of the PLP.

“That matter went to the PLP Executive. The Executive after some discussion mandated the chairman of the Party, Douglas Wattley in collaboration with the Party Leader Timothy Harris to establish a five-man inquiry into those campaign funds which were reportedly collected and not accounted for. Information that I have, having spoken to some of those campaign donors and the amounts they have given me, it is in excess, is in the millions of dollars and we have not seen that money,” said Phillip.

Sam Condor, PLP’s Deputy Leader and St. Kitts and Nevis’ Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York has confirmed that he too has concerns about some campaign funds that have not been accounted for.

Condor told WINNFM Sunday that he is still the PLP Deputy Leader and insists that Douglas Wattley and Clecton Phillip still hold their respective positions within the PLP.

WINNFM further reported Sunday that Condor has served notice that if the original executive is removed at the national convention whether by a vote or otherwise, he intends to mount a legal challenge against that move.

Condor has indicated that he will not be attending the convention on Sunday as he is due to travel on that day.

There have been reports that Ambassador Condor has not been on speaking terms with Prime Minister Harris for several months.

One of the issues is the slow pace of the Timothy Harris Team Unity coalition to keep its campaign promise of enacting legislation on Integrity in Public Life and Freedom of Information after two years.

Condor is of the view these matters should be prioritized.

“I would like to submit that the whole idea of objection and protest to the way the governors were appointed during colonial times was our whole approach and concern about good governance, and how we should be governed. Our agitation for adult suffrage was part of that good governance agenda, it wasn’t called that. Our fight for the establishment and the legalization of trade unionism and all that, these were our efforts in terms of good governance and how we think our country should be governed and so I get the impression that you have a long term view on these matters, but I want to say that the whole idea of good governance isn’t anything that we should wait for a long time to come, these are matters that we have been agitating about for nearly 100 years,” said Condor.

He is of the view there appears to be a lack of political will to move expeditiously on the matter of good governance as promised by Prime Minister Harris.

“We know and you said it correctly that we have the intellect to govern ourselves it is just the will to do what is right, to make sure that we implement these policies and programmes of good governance. I think the time has come, I know for example in the case of St. Kitts and Nevis, at the constitutional conference this was an issue, whether integrity in public life should be part of the constitutional arrangement, there was a whole discussion about that. This has been an active part of the political agenda and discourse and discussion since pre-independence and in particular since independence. So I am admonishing not only here in St Kitts and Nevis, but in the region, we are one people in the Caribbean and CARICOM and OECS, that our political directorate must see the whole idea of good governance as a matter of urgency and that we must have these policies implemented and organized expeditiously,” Condor told WINNFM.

It was evidenced Sunday that Condor and Harris are not on speaking terms when the latter lead a small group of PLP officials and members to a church service in the constituency that Condor was parliamentary representative for nearly 30 years.

Condor, who served as Deputy Prime Minister in the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party Administration of then Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas, resigned from the Labour Cabinet on January 30, 2013, days after Harris was dismissed.

Harris has indicated that his niece in law and newly-appointed Deputy Speaker Akilah Nisbett, who stood with Harris at the service, will replace Condor. Condor has said he prefers Samal Duggins to be his successor.