In an article by James Gaskell, published in the St. Kitts-Nevis Observer on July 18, and on other social media, Mr. Gaskell sought to weave a tapestry of lies and innuendoes around rumors put out by officials of the Nevis Reformation Party (NRP) and their supporters in the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party. The article used as a background the known facts that the Nevis Housing and Land Development Corp. agreed to sell 9.9420 acres of land at Potworks Estate north of the University of the Americas Medical School, much of it marginal land, to an American citizen originally of Iraq who still has interest there, to establish a tourist development in St. James. The project was approved by the Cabinet of the Nevis Island Administration (NIA) and the developer was granted the necessary and normal licences to acquire the land. Around those facts, Mr. Gaskell and his friends have attempted to throw a dragnet around the entire CCM-lead NIA, accusing each or all of them of collecting monies from this American citizen who they refer to as an Iraqi. They know that no money has gone to any minister but Mr. Gaskell, but nonetheless raise issues of possible criminality and corruption against members of the NIA. He referred to money being sent to a local bank in St. Kitts/Nevis for the land, who his friends in the NRP identified as the St. Kitts/Nevis/Anguilla National Bank, and which was returned to the sender. That the same sender sent money to another local bank for the account of a private citizen but was returned by the bank. His friends have indentified that second bank as the Bank of Nevis. One member of the NRP leadership has stated publicly that they received their information from the banks. That should raise the concern of all citizens of this country who do business with our banks, particularly the banks identified. How, you may ask, did these enemies of the NIA get private information of customers of these banks? A number, if not all, of the directors of the St. Kitts/Nevis/ Anguilla National Bank are supporters of either the St. Kitts/Nevis Labour Party or the NRP. A number of them are also known political activists. In the case of the Bank of Nevis, although the appointment procedure is more elective, the outcome is almost the same. I am a shareholder of both of these indigenous banks and I know that the management of these banks recognized that confidence in the propriety and privacy of its dealings are critically important. It seems to me that it is time that appointments to the boards of these two banks be based on integrity and competence rather than party support. That is not to say that a number of these directors do not do a professional job and recognize the privacy of the bank system. Mr. Gaskell, in his article, rightly stated that the allegations that he pedals are “highly defamatory.”However, in order to avoid being hauled before a court for defamation, he was forced to throw his “missiles”generally and broadly. In doing so, he has tarnished the good name of some of the finest Nevisians we have produced and led by a man of exemplary character. Of course, this is not the first time that Mr. Gaskell has been unfairly critical of the CCM and its leaders, and he is clearly no friend of Mr. Vance Amory and his Cabinet colleagues. When, in 2005, the CCM administration had to take action to reopen a roadway near Montpelier, which Mr. Gaskell had blocked, claiming it was his land, he took action in the court to reclaim the land. Sadly, the CCM lost the government shortly thereafter, the incoming NRP administration settled the matter, and he was paid a hefty compensation. It is a sign of the times that we live in that an innocuous and normal transaction of a government agency, empowered to sell land and make an agreement to do so in the interest of the development of the country, could end up with allegation of corruption and dishonesty. There cannot be any objection by the NRP and its federal friends to the Nevis Housing and Land Development Corp. selling land to a foreigner, since it was the NRP administration and the federal government that instituted the land-for-debt policy, which provides for the transfer of more than 1,200 acres of land in St. Kitts and about 250 acres of land in Nevis to the St. Kitts/Nevis/Anguilla National Bank. It is expected that the vast amount of those lands would be sold by the bank to foreigners to settle the debt of both St. Kitts and Nevis to the bank. I know that a realtor in Nevis associated with the NRP is extremely busy travelling about the Middle East offering for sale those same lands. Further, it is known that hundreds of our fellow citizens who have acquired citizenships through the Citizen by Investment Program are Iraqis and could buy whatever land they wish here without any further permission. This whole “cataflan” is reminiscent of the attack by the NRP of our beloved and former Minister of Agriculture and Deputy Premier, now deceased, Malcolm Guishard, in which they claimed he sold his brother, who is a businessman in New York, USA, 80 acres of land for less than the market price. They knew at the time when they made the allegations that the 80 acres of land was not owned by government but was owned by Pinney’s Investment Co., a foreign-owned company whose shareholders and directors lived in France and Switzerland. Further, they also knew that another Nevisian businessman had bought 100 acres of the same land from that company for the same price. It is believed that those false allegations caused not only the CCM to lose the local elections in 2006 but also hastened the death of Malcolm Guishard. Mr. Gaskell was also at the time no bystander. The NIA and the CCM have since its elections in January 2013 withstood everything the NRP and the federal government and a number of its agencies have thrown at it and will continue to do so because it has the support and confidence of the people of Nevis. Regardless, these lies, conspiracy and slander, and even libel, can never be repeated.
