October 26th 2010: Former Minister for Works Sen. the Hon. Gregory Bowen says he is amazed at the ability of the Finance Minister to tell blatant lies to the people of Grenada with the intention to further distract them from the reality that his administration has failed miserably since assuming office in July 2008 and to place blame on the former NNP Administration.

According to Sen. Bowen, at a recent sitting of Parliament, the Minister told the nation that the NDC administration is borrowing about EC45.4 million dollars for the purpose of creating jobs through the construction of a number of farm roads. The Minister went on to say that because of the mismanagement of the NNP administration the NDC Government now has to spend approximately EC19.7 million dollars to repay CCC for work done on phase one. However, Sen. Bowen described this allegation as a criminal lie saying that the contract for phase one was signed in May 2008 and actual work started in June 2008 about three weeks before NDC assumed office. He said any mismanagement in phase 1would have occurred during the 18 months in which the NDC managed the entire project.

Bowen added that the arrangement with Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) was that the amount by the NNP administration owing which was less than 12 million dollars (for other works not related to phase one) would be paid in monthly installments by the Government. However he said the public must know that the NDC Government stopped the payments as they wanted to get rid of CCC. Sen. Bowen explained that an additional EC$ 7.9 million dollars was incurred by the NDC as cost overrun on the Farm Road Project as a result of NDC’s mismanagement bringing the total amount owed to CCC to EC 19.7 million dollars.
According to Bowen, the Minister seems unable to control his appetite to provide false information to the public because he must be aware that the agreement for the loan being sought makes it impossible for funds to be used to pay outstanding amounts owed to CCC. Furthermore the minister knew that he had already signed another arrangement for a loan to pay off CCC. This had nothing to do with the loan being sought from Kuwait. Sen. Bowen also referred to a recent statement made by the Minister for Finance which indicated that the Government had submitted all documents to the Ex-Im Bank of China and is currently awaiting a final response for securing a loan to build a new hotel. He said shortly after on another interview the Minister said that the Government is yet to submit the said documents to the bank so he is not in a position to say what the status is.

According to Sen. Bowen, the Minister of Finance cannot be trusted and must not be allowed to continue to have responsibility for the financial affairs of the country, especially in light of the number of accusations made against him. Further more, the behaviour of the Minister he said will sooner than later bring more embarrassment to the nation.


From the Office of the Leader of the Opposition



(The views and opinions expressed in the above article represents those of the writer and not necessarily those of the GC staff)