The Prime Minister of Antigua, Gaston Browne, has described his Vincentian counterpart, Ralph Gonsalves, as deceptive as the controversy over the liquidation of LIAT continues.
Browne took to Facebook to hit back at Gonsalves when Gonsalves said in a television interview in St Vincent that all four shareholder-governments of the cash strapped regional airline had agreed to liquidate it at a meeting held in late July.
The four major shareholders of LIAT are Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados.
Gonsalves told the television program “Round Table Talk” the decision to liquidate was done after a presentation and analysis of the financial health of the airline was received.
“From that analysis, from the presentation, the board of directors concluded that LIAT could not pay its debts, that it was in a bad shape financially and that it should be wound up,” Gonsalves said.
He stated that a resolution was made by the board to wind up the airline, adding that after receiving the report and resolution, as chairman of the shareholders, he had to act.
Gonsalves went on to say that meeting was called for July 27 with four items of the agenda and the liquidation of LIAT was one of them.
“The agenda with those four items was unanimously approved and the decision to liquidate was also unanimously approved by the four major shareholders…” he stated.
But Browne disagreed saying that he has never supported the unconditional liquidation of the airline without the creation of a new one.
“Out of respect and deference for you as a senior Caribbean Statesman, I will not venture to call you a notorious liar, but I must signal my disappointment with your deception,” he wrote on his Facebook page on Thursday.
He described Gonsalves’ statement as “a partial story to suit a recriminatory narrative,” which he said “could never be considered as the truth.”
“My Dear Comrade, let’s bury the intellectual subterfuge and recriminations,” Browne wrote. “You are fully aware, that I never and will never, support the unconditional liquidation without the creation of a new LIAT. Let’s unite and reorganize LIAT for the benefit of the Caribbean people.”
Where is all this going? Finally, the shit has hit the proverbial fan for the many politicians who saw this agency as the way to unit the region but burdened it with taxes to obstruct that objective. We will certainly be going back down that road if we have new unit bearing the same name with Antigua as the headquarters. Same shit same name and the same taxes or more.
Let’s try to move and make it a public private entity leaving the governments to design their strategies to incite the region’s people to visit and stay. Government intervention should be limited