Former minister of finance Harold Lovell has dismissed as “absolute stupidity”, the recent revelation by Cabinet that the former United Progressive Party (UPP) administration is responsible for an EC $170 million-dollar loan from the St Kitts & Nevis National Bank.
Last Saturday, Cabinet reported that “the transaction was undertaken by the ABI Bank on behalf of the ousted regime some time between 2004 and 2014”.
It said by way of post-Cabinet notes that “knowledge of this instrument was raised with the prime minister on Friday, October 28, 2016, by a banker from St Kitts. It is to be investigated”.
Lovell, who was Antigua & Barbuda’s minister of finance at the time, said there is no way that such a debt could go unnoticed.
He questioned whether the financial secretary, the budget director, the debt management unit, the accountant general or the treasury “ever saw this bond that needed to be paid”.
The former finance minister said he did admit to consolidating a loan in 2010 based on debt accrued both under the Antigua Labour Party government and the successive UPP administration, which amounted to EC $170 million.
But he said, “From the time we consolidated that loan, we made all our payments.
“We were not in arrears; every month religiously the treasury will make sure that the payments were made and paid ABI regularly,” he added.
Lovell said he “can’t speak” to the involvement of the St Kitts & Nevis National Bank “because banks have relationships with banks”.
“If ABI Bank entered into a relationship with the St Kitts Bank, that’s a matter between ABI and the St Kitts & Nevis National Bank,” he said.