Kyss Fm owner and talk show host A.U Brown, took P.M Harris to task in a radio commentary on Friday morning.Brown said the gutter partisan politics exhibited by Pm Harris in his closing remarks on the Citizenship By Investment(CBI)debate in the National Assembly on Thursday, was “despicable and distasteful”.
Brown said it was an abuse of parliamentary privilege when names of ordinary private citizens are smeared in what he called a name and shame campaign by PM Harris.
Brown felt that Speaker of the National Assembly Franklin Brand “dropped the ball on this one”, in allowing the prime minister to carry on in this “callous and childish manner”.He said Dr Harris’ disclosure of names and monies allocated as loans or salaries, to former SKNLP supporters in the public and private sectors was not a crime. They had gotten paid for work done or services rendered. Brown contended that none of the people disclosed to the public by PM Harris, were accused of theft or corruption.
Here is a part of Brown’s commentary:”After listening to government ministers smearing the name of hard working people and disclosing to the nation and the world how much they were paid for services they provided to the government, or the salaries paid to civil servants, I wondered if getting a good paying job is now a crime. Oddly, he accused none of the people whose name and salary he disclosed to the public with corruption or theft, which left no doubt that Dr. Timothy Harris and his ministers are abusing their parliamentary privilege to do as they claim “name and shame” persons formerly employed and or provided services to the government and the federation of St. Kitts and Nevis. All the persons that were identified were supporters of the former regime.
That marathon period the Prime Minster used in such a despicable and distasteful way should have been used to explain the bill. After all was said and done to embarrass hard working individuals the essence of the amendment to the economic citizen bill was lost, as people were disgusted with the Prime Minister’s behaviour. Even supporters of the government took to social media and expressed their disgust at what they saw.
The speaker is not blameless in the callous, childish, and unnecessary display he allowed for over an hour. He should have stopped Dr. Harris from being so trivial in the parliament. The personal information he shared was of no benefit to anyone and more importantly, it had no relevance to the bill. Therefore Mr. Brand dropped the ball on that one. Now if the persons that were named had stole money from the government or was not meeting their obligations to the government controlled banks from which they received loans, this would have been a different commentary.
What we saw from the government side was more campaigning from the national parliament. Although some PAM supporters took pleasure in what transpired, I am not convinced that there is much appetite in the public for this kind of gutter politics within the halls of the National Assembly.”