Basseterre, St Kitts (VOSKN) – Prime Minister Dr Timothy Harriscontinues to fire salvos at Mr G A. Dwyer Astaphan, and has accused his former ministerial colleague in the past St Kitts-Nevis Labour Party Government as a hypocrite.
Astaphan, co-leader of Operation Rescue, has been a major and constant critic of Prime Minister Harris and his Team Unity Government for not pursuing its promised legislative agenda including revoking the land for debt swap legislation and passing Integrity in Public Life, Term Limit for the Prime Minister and Freedom of Information legislation.“They drafted their own integrity in public life bill and presented it to the Speaker.
In 2011 Team Unity, in opposition drafted their own Integrity in Public Life Bill presented it to the Speaker and was obstructed in getting the bill presented to parliament for debate.
Five years later, Team Unity is in government, no Speaker there to block them, no Denzil Douglas there to block them, nobody to block them but they still not presenting the Integrity In Public Life legislation, why not? You see we have to ask the questions, we’re not accusing anybody of anything but people’s actions speak more loudly than their words and while the words of a political party aspiring to be in the government are listened to and sometimes hung upon and used a s a vehicle of hope for people who want better, people don’t want to be disappointed by action that is different from the words for the things promised” said Astaphan in a recent WINNFM interview.
Although Prime Minister Harris did not name the former minister, political analysts are of the view that Harris at his recent press conference, was referring to Astaphan, when he was a minister of government and had a number of things to do and left the Labour government without accomplishing them.
“So this [criticism about the speed of Team Unity’s legislative action] is just a convenient talk by those who want to hustle the government into action, by those who want to bring an unfair negative to attach to this government, and we will robustly defend the government against such undermining because it’s calculated…In the life of any government, in a particular moment in time, there will be areas in which there is no action yet, and there are a range of reasons for that.
Michael Powell, our Special Envoy and Ambassador, has been in government for a long time; he knows. There are persons out there who have been in government. They had a number of things to do under their watch as a particular Minister [with assigned portfolio(s)].
They left the government and they didn’t do them, and now they are out of government they want to dictate to the government. Hypocrisy, and we must call it for what it is,” the St. Kitts and Nevis Information Service (SKNIS) said.
A Team Unity source tells VOSKN that Harris was referring to Astaphan’s failure to produce a new Labour Code during his tenure as Minister of Labour and after leaving the Cabinet was to be paid nearly $250,000 to produce a draft. Astaphan repaid the first installment after it was made public by then Minister of Education, Nigel Carty.