A political controversy has emerged in Dominica after prominent local businessman Gregor Nassief accused the government of deploying plainclothes intelligence officers to monitor a private civic meeting he hosted, prompting a firm defense from Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit that frames the incident as standard national security practice.
Nassief’s allegation, made public in recent weeks, centers on a private gathering held August 26 at Fort Young Hotel. According to the businessman, two officers from Dominica’s Special Branch intelligence unit arrived at the venue and remained on the property for more than four hours. He has argued that their uninvited presence created an intimidating atmosphere for meeting attendees, framing the incident as an example of government overreach.
Speaking at a press conference this week, Prime Minister Skerrit pushed back against these claims. He confirmed that he only learned of the officers’ presence after the allegations became public, and explicitly denied ever issuing orders for law enforcement to attend or monitor the meeting. However, Skerrit stopped short of condemning the officers’ actions, instead defending the general practice of deploying Special Branch personnel near publicly announced gatherings as a core component of routine national security work.
Skerrit emphasized that the officers in question never entered the meeting space nor disrupted its proceedings. To contextualize the practice of intelligence gathering at public events, the prime minister recalled that even when his Dominica Labour Party (DLP) was in opposition prior to taking office, Special Branch officers routinely monitored political gatherings he attended — a longstanding institutional practice, he argued, not a new political tactic.
The prime minister rejected claims that the incident constitutes evidence of systemic political oppression. He pushed back against critics who have framed the monitoring as a deliberate attempt to stifle dissent, noting that Dominica remains a robustly free society where citizens openly and regularly criticize both him and his government without fear of retribution.
Skerrit closed by reaffirming the necessity of intelligence gathering for national security. He maintained that state security agencies must retain the authority to collect information on potential threats to public safety and share relevant intelligence with police leadership to prevent unrest or harm.