标签： Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Fresh allegations of systemic misuse of public funds have emerged against St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ former Unity Labour Party administration, just months after the party lost its grip on power in the November 27 general election. The most prominent accusation centers on an unauthorized EC$250,000 payout from the National Lotteries Authority to a local contractor, earmarked for the long-delayed Langley Park Playing Field project, approved only eight days before voters headed to the polls.

Internal documents obtained exclusively by iWitness News, whose authenticity has been verified by multiple senior insider sources, lay bare the questionable transaction. The contractor submitted an undated funding request to a senior NLA management official, referencing a prior conversation with a sitting ULP cabinet minister. The request, which contained several noticeable spelling and grammatical errors, listed vague planned works ranging from tree clearing and site grading to concrete work for on-site toilet facilities, with no formal cost breakdown or construction timeline attached. Despite the lack of detailed project documentation, the request carried a signature matching that of the former senior ULP minister, along with the date November 19, 2025 — just one week and one day before election day.

What has raised further red flags for investigators and opposition officials now in power is the timeline of the payout. The contractor cashed the EC$250,000 check the very next business day after receiving it, walking away with the full sum in 2,500 EC$100 bills. When the NLA’s new board of directors, appointed by the incoming New Democratic Party government, conducted an on-site inspection of the Langley Park site in March 2026, inspectors found no evidence that any construction or preparatory work had ever been carried out on the project.

The Langley Park Playing Field has been a flashpoint of political controversy in the North Windward constituency since 2020, when then-ULP Member of Parliament Montgomery Daniel first promised the facility ahead of that year’s general election, on the campaign trail in September 2020. “We would establish a playing field at Langley Park so that we will be able to move on,” Daniel told voters at the time, and he went on to win a fifth consecutive term in office for the ULP.

By May 2023, with no visible progress on the project, then-opposition NDP candidate Shevern John seized on the unfulfilled promise as a core example of the ULP administration’s failed development commitments in the constituency. Speaking at an NDP campaign rally that month, John called out the ULP for performing two empty groundbreaking ceremonies for the same project without ever allocating budget to move construction forward. “Where is the playing field today? Where is it? It is nowhere because they have not allocated anything for it. They have no development plan for the people of this constituency,” John told supporters.

In January 2025, during the annual budget debate in parliament, Daniel again reiterated the ULP’s pledge to deliver the playing field that year, saying, “At Langley Park, we continue to do several road programs. We continue to build a number of houses, and this year we will have the playing facility established in that area.” But by October 2025, on the eve of the general election, John again highlighted the project as a symbol of the ULP’s broken promises, noting, “There has been two groundbreaking ceremonies for the same playing field and nothing can be delivered.”

After John won the North Windward seat and the NDP secured a majority in the November 2025 election, the new MP and cabinet minister reaffirmed her government’s commitment to finally delivering the long-awaited community facility to Langley Park residents. During the 2026 budget debate, John told parliament that the incoming administration would follow through where the ULP failed. “The Langley Park playing field, which … had a groundbreaking twice — twice, Madam Speaker. … We will ensure that it is graded properly and that the necessary infrastructure are in place so the people of Langley Park can play their games there,” she said.

The newly uncovered transaction is one of multiple alleged cases of improper use of state resources being investigated by the new NDP administration, following the ULP’s election defeat late last year.

A public dispute has erupted over the handover of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG)’s New York Consulate General, with former top diplomat Rondy “Luta” McIntosh pushing back forcefully against claims made by the country’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dwight Fitzgerald Bramble that all computer systems at the mission were wiped clean at the end of McIntosh’s tenure.

McIntosh, who served as Consul General to New York from August 1, 2022, to February 28, 2024, broke his silence in a Facebook video posted Saturday, laying out a detailed account of the handover process and refuting every part of Bramble’s allegation.

According to the former consul general, the only action he took on the consulate computer he used was removing files personal to him — a step he described as standard, proper conduct for any departing official. He also clarified that he cleaned up personal correspondence, private family documents and other personal clutter from the official email account that would be passed to his successor, a move he stressed is far from wiping an entire device clean. McIntosh added that his own official consular email remained active on his final day at the mission, and any subsequent deletion or disabling of that account was carried out by a third party, not him. If files linked to that account are now inaccessible, he argues, the blame falls to whoever disabled the account, not him.

Bramble first made the wiping claim during a parliamentary address Tuesday, stating that incoming Consul General Roland “Patel” Matthews informed him that every computer system at the consulate was completely wiped when he took office in early March. The following day, speaking on local radio station Hot 97 FM, Bramble defended his statement as factual, though he acknowledged uncertainty over whether it was a single device or an entire server that was affected, noting that the situation remained under further investigation. When pressed on who might be responsible, Bramble declined to speculate, saying he was only reporting what he had been told by the new consul general.

Despite Bramble’s refusal to explicitly name a culprit, McIntosh said the minister’s comments clearly implied he was responsible for the alleged data erasure, damaging his professional reputation and personal integrity. That, he said, left him no choice but to respond publicly — an action he emphasized is not rooted in bitterness or partisan gain, but in correcting factually incorrect and unfair claims.

McIntosh went on to share extensive details of the supervised handover process to refute the allegations. He confirmed that his final physical day at the consulate was March 3, and the entire transition was overseen by SVG’s Ambassador to the United States, Lou-Anne Gilchrist, who traveled from Washington D.C. to New York for the process. On that day, McIntosh said, he personally assisted Matthews with setup on the consul general’s assigned computer, all devices were fully functional, and no wiping of data occurred. He also noted that he picked Matthews up from Brooklyn — as the new consul could not drive — and the three parties even shared a meal after the handover was completed, leaving the consulate together. He called this the conduct of a transparent professional with nothing to hide, not someone who had tampered with official data.

The handover, McIntosh explained, was completed in two fully documented phases, both oversaw by Ambassador Gilchrist. He also prepared a comprehensive 17-page handover booklet covering all aspects of the consulate’s operations — from banking arrangements and account balances, system passwords and access codes, monthly expenses, key contact lists, consular operating procedures, staffing updates, outstanding active cases, and strategic guidance for the incoming administration. He stressed that no information was withheld or hidden from his successor or overseeing officials.

McIntosh also pushed back on the core premise of the allegation by explaining the operating structure of the New York consulate. Unlike larger diplomatic missions, he noted, the SVG consulate operates largely on physical documentation rather than a centralized digital database or server. Core consular services including passport and travel document processing, notarial services, repatriation of human remains, immigration and deportation cases, and community liaison work are all handled via physical paperwork. All critical official records are duplicated and stored both at the consulate and at SVG’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Immigration Office, and central registry in Kingstown, with the government always maintaining full access to official documents. Even if personal files were removed from individual work devices, he argued, there is no scenario where that could erase the government’s institutional knowledge of consular operations.

The former consul general also pointed out a key gap in the government’s process: in the nearly two months following his March 3 handover, he received no official inquiry from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or any other state body about the computers or handover before Bramble made the allegation public. McIntosh noted that he had remained fully available and cooperative after leaving office, even offering to travel to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kingstown to sign off on financial accounts once he returned to SVG. He questioned why, if the discovery of wiped computers was such a serious issue, no one reached out to him for an explanation before the minister went public with the accusation. He argued that an honest, timely inquiry would have quickly revealed the claim had no merit, and that Ambassador Gilchrist’s official report to the ministry already confirms his version of events, noting that he complied fully with all handover requirements and the entire process proceeded professionally and respectfully.

McIntosh concluded that the minister’s public comments amount to an attack on his years of public service, and he made clear that he will not accept any implication that he engaged in wrongdoing.

A fierce political debate has unfolded in St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ Parliament over a proposed national security bill, pitting current Deputy Prime Minister and National Security Minister St. Clair Leacock against former Prime Minister and Opposition Leader Ralph Gonsalves. The tension stems from Leacock’s recent startling revelations about the extent of citizen data collected by Gonsalves’ Unity Labour Party (ULP) administration, which held power for 25 years until its electoral defeat in November 2024.\n\nSpeaking during debate on the Advanced Passenger Information and Passenger Name Record Bill on Tuesday, Leacock expressed shock at the types of intelligence that now cross his desk, collected by the previous government. “When I see the things that come across my desk in this role… sometimes I hold my head and ask, ‘Is this the kind of intelligence the former prime minister held on me, my party, and ordinary private citizens during his time in office?’” Leacock told the legislative chamber.\n\nThe bill, designed to strengthen border and national security by standardizing collection and sharing of traveler data, ultimately passed with no formal unified position from the three-member opposition. Gonsalves, a trained lawyer, launched sharp criticism of the legislation, arguing that it reads like an unfinished draft rather than a final piece of law. He raised pointed concerns about gaps in data protection, unclear frameworks for official appointments, and ambiguous timelines for mandatory information submission, also questioning whether the bill had completed required vetting through the CARICOM Legal Affairs Committee (LAC).\n\nLeacock pushed back forcefully against these critiques, framing Gonsalves’ objections as part of a long-standing pattern of authoritarian control over policy. He told Parliament, “If it is not under the suzerainty of the Honourable Ralph Everett Gonsalves, it ain’t good. Nobody is good enough for him unless he presides over it.” The Central Kingstown MP added that as a former prime minister and decades-long national security minister, Gonsalves has a greater national responsibility to avoid undermining the credibility of current national and regional security institutions. Leacock accused Gonsalves of nitpicking over minor drafting details like punctuation to erode public trust in the new government’s work, calling his focus “all semantics” that amounts to an attack on the integrity of public servants.\n\nLeacock further alleged that Gonsalves’ 25-year administration left St. Vincent and the Grenadines with a disjointed, ramshackle national security apparatus that the new government is working to repair. He pointed to port security as a key example: while the previous ULP government installed passenger screening equipment at the main port, it failed to put in place legal mechanisms that would automatically share screening data with police, leaving critical security gaps. On the question of regional vetting, Leacock clarified that the bill was already reviewed by the CARICOM LAC during Gonsalves’ own tenure, and passed through all required regional processes when Gonsalves led the country’s involvement in CARICOM IMPACS, the regional security body.\n\nResponding to Gonsalves’ comment that the current New Democratic Party administration would only serve one term, Leacock framed the remark as evidence of the opposition’s core goal of undermining the new government rather than working for the national good. “It points to a poison that in order for this country to go forward, we must not underestimate the hurdles that remain for us to climb. Your single purpose is to ensure that we become a one-term government,” he said.\n\nIn his rebuttal, Gonsalves rejected all of Leacock’s claims, denying that he had ever criticized or disrespected regional security bodies.\n\nLeacock closed his argument by reaffirming the core purpose of the new legislation: to protect travelers entering and exiting St. Vincent and the Grenadines, boosting public confidence that the country offers both safety and streamlined access for visitors. He noted that any minor drafting imperfections can be corrected through regular governance processes down the line, and there is no justification for delaying the critical security framework the country needs to address modern transnational threats that may outpace the capacity of the outdated system inherited from the previous administration.

In a formal address to the country’s parliament on Tuesday, St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ (SVG) Minister of Foreign Affairs Dwight Fitzgerald Bramble issued a clear, public clarification that the Caribbean nation has not entered into any binding agreement with the United States centered on third-country national relocation arrangements, confirming that negotiations over the proposed deal have slowed to a near standstill in recent weeks.

Brambles’ comments came in direct response to a question posed by opposition senator Carlos James, who asked the ruling administration to confirm whether the U.S. had submitted a formal request for a third-country agreement — a deal that would allow for the transfer of non-U.S. nationals from American territory to SVG for processing and relocation — and whether Kingstown had finalized and signed any such arrangement.

Bramble laid out the full timeline of the outreach to parliament, explaining that the U.S. government first approached SVG with a formal request to explore a partnership focused on third-country national issues, and followed the initial request by sharing a draft draft memorandum of understanding (MoU) for SVG’s leadership to review. He emphasized that this U.S. initiative is not targeted exclusively at SVG, but is part of a broader regional outreach effort that includes all member states of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).

In line with the regional scope of the proposal, Bramble noted that SVG has coordinated closely with its OECS neighbors to review the draft text collectively, approaching the potential arrangement through a collaborative regional framework rather than engaging in independent negotiations. Despite months of preliminary discussions and review of the draft document, Bramble stressed that talks have never advanced to the stage of a binding commitment.

When updating lawmakers on the current state of negotiations, Bramble confirmed that the process has decelerated sharply over the past few weeks, with little to no forward movement on finalizing any terms. He repeated multiple times during his address that no agreement has been signed, nor has any finalized binding deal ever been presented to SVG’s government for approval.

Brambles did not provide additional specific details on the contents of the draft MoU, including what specific groups of migrants would have been covered by any finalized arrangement. The question from the opposition senator comes amid growing regional and global debate over third-country national processing and relocation schemes, which have become a controversial topic of migration policy discussions across the Americas in recent years. Bramble’s address made a clear distinction between receiving and reviewing a proposal, and formally agreeing to enter into a binding deal, leaving no ambiguity about SVG’s current position on the proposed U.S. partnership.

A sharp political clash has erupted in St. Vincent and the Grenadines over plans for a new national development bank, with Prime Minister Godwin Friday launching a blistering rebuke of Opposition Leader Ralph Gonsalves, framing the former prime minister’s criticism as evidence of the outdated governance that led to his Unity Labour Party (ULP)’s landslide defeat in November 2024’s general election.

The debate unfolded in Parliament on Tuesday, April 21, 2025, during discussion of a motion tabled by government senator Chelsea Alexander, advancing the New Democratic Party (NDP)’s campaign pledge to reestablish a national development bank. The incoming NDP government revived the proposal after the ULP shut down the country’s original development institution shortly after taking power in 2001.

Under the NDP’s plan, Alexander explained, the new national development bank will expand affordable access to development capital for small and medium-sized enterprises, small-scale producers, fisher folk, and other underserved vulnerable sectors that have long struggled to secure funding from existing fragmented financing frameworks.

Gonsalves, whose ULP held power for 25 years before the NDP’s decisive 14-1 election victory, pushed back forcefully against the proposal. He argued that the country already maintains a network of specialized, fit-for-purpose public institutions and programs that already deliver the core services the new bank is intended to provide. These include the 1960s-founded development corporation that was later restructured into the development bank his administration closed, the Bank of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the Student Loan Company, the Farmer Support Company, and targeted initiatives including the PRYME program and zero-down-payment mortgages for public servants, all introduced under his leadership.

Beyond questioning the need for a new standalone bank, Gonsalves raised serious concerns about the institution’s long-term viability. He challenged the NDP to identify a source of cheap, sustainable funding to support the bank’s preferential lending mission, warning that high borrowing costs, steep administrative overhead, and risks of rising non-performing loans could leave the project insolvent. “You may well end up with your national development bank where the funding is just not available at rates of interest and on terms to make it viable,” he told the chamber.

Friday rejected every element of Gonsalves’ argument, dismissing the opposition leader’s stance as proof of a “stunning lack of imagination” and a stubborn attachment to outdated governance models. The prime minister tied the opposition’s criticism directly to the ULP’s historic election defeat, arguing that the result was not just a routine electoral loss, but a full repudiation of the ULP’s backwards-looking approach to governing.

“You can’t govern based on simply everything that you saw in the past. You have to plan for the future,” Friday said. “And that is what we bring to the table… a fresh approach, a new way of looking at things, more creativity, more diligence, hard work and putting the people of this country first.”

The prime minister also pushed back against Gonsalves’ claim that consolidating multiple functions into one new bank would be inefficient, pointing to major flaws in the existing fragmented system that the NDP is seeking to fix. He noted that 75% of loans issued by the ULP-established Farmer Support Company currently go unrepaid, arguing that the new structure will deliver far better outcomes for public finances and beneficiaries alike. Contrary to claims that the bank would add unnecessary bureaucracy, Friday stressed that the proposal is a deliberate effort to rationalize the current patchwork of support programs, creating a single, more coherent and accountable institution to deliver development financing, rather than adding an extra layer of government.

Friday also framed the opposition’s opposition as a rejection of support for ordinary Vincentians, telling constituents: “Let the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines register this: the opposition opposes the national development bank, an institution that is there to give small business people, ordinary people, fisher folk, access to capital, to guidance so that they could build themselves up. They are against that.”

When the allocated time for private members’ motions expired at 5 p.m. Tuesday, the debate on the motion was adjourned to a future sitting of Parliament.

In a sweeping overhaul of accountability measures for a national post-disaster housing repair and reconstruction initiative, the new government has ordered all program payments to be routed exclusively through the national Treasury, eliminating direct disbursements by the Ministry of Housing. The policy shift comes in the wake of shocking discoveries of widespread mismanagement and corruption that left contractors fully paid for unbuilt homes and construction materials distributed with no transparent oversight.

Housing Minister Andrew John outlined the reforms in a parliamentary address Tuesday, responding to questions from opposition Senator Carlos James about the 2026 housing recovery program for properties damaged or destroyed by two successive major natural disasters: the April 2021 eruption of the La Soufriere volcano and Hurricane Beryl, which made landfall on July 1, 2024.

John explained that the new administration, which took office after winning November’s general election, inherited a deeply troubled program from the Unity Labour Party, which held power for 25 consecutive years before being voted out. The scope of the financial and operational mismanagement is so severe, he told lawmakers, that housing ministry officials are now completely barred from processing direct payments to contractors or suppliers.

“Everything now must go through the Treasury system so that we have proper accountability. No longer will we have cases where 10 or 15 homes are marked as built in a constituency, but no one can find them,” John told parliament.

The minister confirmed that unfulfilled legacy contracts from the previous administration represent one of the largest barriers to delivering the 2026 housing program. “We have discovered that what consumes a large portion of the budget allocated for 2026 is contracts issued by the prior government where contractors received full payment but never built the scheduled homes,” he said.

The ongoing mismanagement has been formally referred for investigation to Minister of National Security St. Clair Leacock, who also serves as Member of Parliament for Central Kingstown. John has already briefed Prime Minister Godwin Friday on irregularities found in Friday’s Northern Grenadines constituency, and is preparing a similar briefing for Leacock on issues in Central Kingstown. “These are serious issues, and they will impact the outcome of our performance,” John acknowledged.

A second major unresolved challenge is a massive backlog of unpaid debts owed to both local and international building material suppliers and service providers, carried over from the previous administration. John framed the shift to centralized Treasury payments as a core step in a broader effort to rebuild financial discipline, transparency, and resilience to the troubled housing recovery effort.

“This government is a government with a vision, is a government of action, and so we will overcome these problems,” John said. Going forward, stricter contractual enforcement will be paired with the new payment system to hold contractors accountable. The minister confirmed he has referred multiple problematic legacy contracts to the Attorney General to enforce contractual obligations, noting the sheer scale of the prior mismanagement is deeply troubling. “I don’t know how people could get full payment under a contract and walk away without delivering the work. It’s really, really troubling,” he said.

Despite the challenges, John confirmed that critical roof repair and rehabilitation work is continuing, with a renewed focus on “rebuilding better” ahead of the Atlantic hurricane season, which officially begins June 1. For the remainder of this year, the majority of housing activity will focus on retrofitting and rehabilitating damaged properties to improve disaster resilience.

The government is also hiring and training new assessors in every parliamentary constituency to ensure allocations of construction materials match actual on-the-ground needs, with mandatory follow-up inspections to confirm materials are used appropriately for disaster-resilient repairs. “We are encouraging all homeowners not just to rebuild, but to rebuild better, and prepare for the possibility of another major disaster,” John said.

With the new centralized payment system and enhanced oversight now in place, John reaffirmed that the housing recovery program is back on track for 2026. “I’m pleased to announce that we are on track once again to rebuild people’s homes,” he said. “We are on track — and not only are we on track now, but we are on track in a more responsible manner.”