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Showing posts from August, 2013

Who sold Our Birthright

Who sold our Birthright?  What do these properties have in common? ·        St James Hotel site ·        Former Parliamentary Elections Office , Woolwich Rd ·        Former Doctors Residences at Thebaide, Maran and La Digue ·        Former Hamilton Home , Lucas St ·        The Old Drill Yard        Sandino Plant at Mt Hartman ·        Former TV station at Morne Jaloux ·        Former Hotel California site at Point Salines These were government properties sold to the National Insurance Scheme for cash as a result of the fact that the institution did not want to purchase ‘Government Paper’ i.e. Treasury Bills. It is public knowledge that the transactions took place above board and in a transparent manner. The representatives of the...

The Dictator

Democratically Elected Dictator? Grenada’s 1974 constitution institutionalized an electoral system of first past the post, with an elected House of Representatives and a nominated upper house or Senate. Between 1974 to 1999 , the country operated a political system where no one party controlled all the seats in the lower house. Even the once formidable Sir Eric Gairy and his GULP never achieved that feat. The New National Party (NNP) led by Dr. Keith Mitchell created history by winning all the seats in national elections. New challenges arose as the framers of the constitution did not envisage such a phenomenon.  In steps the office of the Governor General to “alleviate” the effects of the anomaly by invoking powers to appoint in his own name, three members of the upper house. Interestingly, the said members are deemed to be “independent” but as it now stands all three appointees were defeated candidates of the main opposition party the National Democratic Congress (ND...

NNP: Selling Passport Come Buy !

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 The Citizens by Investment Initiative The "Rubber Stamp" Upper House of the Grenada Parliament passed the Citizens by Incentive Initiative Act is a sitting yesterday 22 nd August 2013. This new piece of legislation has its genesis in the period when the NNP held office 1995 to 2008. That period was characterized by a wild dash by the Mitchell administration to generate much needed funds to spend on “prestige ” projects of his government. During that period, the country also dabbled in offshore banking which brought the now famous scandals involving Van Brink, Resteiner, and the Pirate of Prague among others. The Prime Minister admitted that the prior citizenship program was affected by a lack of mechanisms for due diligence and some people who took advantage of administrative weaknesses in the system. This is an admission of their own incompetence or even willful omission so that their friends can “eat ah food’. No one has ever been fingered or even pers...

Can Grenadians Trust the NNP

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we selling again Round two of the Citizenship by Investment Programme is about to commence. Before the new Bill was passed, Amb. De Savary let the cat out of the bag and of course, with the full knowledge of the“chief”. Amb. De Savary recognizes that he can use the new law, even before it was debated and passed, to his advantage. Grenadians are well aware that that the NNP is hell bent on walking the same road which led us into the “Hall of Shame” as well as the end of no visa travel to Canada. What has changed in terms of the key players ? The high-rollers still remain, Mitchell, Nimrod, Bowen, Modeste- Curwen, and Bhola et al. In the first round, passports were sold like hot bread at a Bakery outlet warm and ready to be delivered as soon as the Cheque was delivered. A retinue of crooks including Eric Resteiner became holders of Grenadian passports. The history is now conveniently ignored by those, who got a “free-bee” seat in parliament and are now enjoying the po...