By Peter Binose

More Spite and Malice in Saint Vincent, Marcus De Freitas, Bigger Bigs, now Ann Joshua of Cobblestone Inn.

Ann is the sister of Ken and Keith Boyea, cousins to Ralph Gonsalves our self proclaimed beloved all loving dutiful kind and all loving Prime Minister. Like her brothers she is a hard working entrepreneur and runs the Cobblestone Inn in Bay Street. In fact she has run it for the last 30 years. There are other siblings but I need not mention them here. Ralph recently held a series of Gonsalves family reunion events in Saint Vincent, some of the Boyea’s were invited some were not, but that is another story [coming soon].

Her rent is up to date, which is surprising because I doubt many could afford to pay $24,000 a month, yes a month not a year. She has not been previously warned of any pending action regarding the termination of her tenancy. In fact she is a reliable model tenant which any landlord would be more than pleased to have as a tenant.

So what did she do wrong? perhaps she did what Bigs [Leon Samuel] did she fraternized with those who the government see as the much hated enemy, supporters of the National Democratic Party [NDP]. But like Bigs who she associates with is her business and should not attract political spite and malice.

Questions are rightly being asked at home and in the Diaspora why the Gonsalves led ULP Government is evicting the lady 30 year tenant operator of Cobblestone Inn in Kingstown, giving her just two months and giving no valid [or non-valid] reason to vacate the premises. It would seem they simply adopted the attitude get out and stay out because we used to love you but not anymore.

Ms Joshua has confirmed that the Government has given her until Sept. 30 to vacate the premises without reason even though she has been renting without complaint for 30 years.

In a letter dated July 12 2016, one of the Gonsalves government legal enforcers Grahame Bollers, lawyer for National Properties Ltd., the state-owned entity responsible for the Cobblestone Inn property, gave no reason why his client/s or whoever had instructed him to take such a drastic and draconian action. Bollers has done very well out of government work, besides his big house in Queens drive he has just started building his mansion at Kitchen with its own rocky beach and a high wall to keep out intruders.

Cobblestone Inn is a 20 guest room award-winning, historic boutique hotel. It was Ms Joshua who created that when she refurbished the whole premises thanks in part to a grant provided by the European Union and facilitated by Caribbean Export and she created some new bedrooms downstairs. She has not just spent a large part of her life there but plenty of her own money too. She really is undeserving of this new ultra undemocratic bout of political driven spite and malice.

The hotel, which is located on Bay Street, Kingstown, is a building that dates back to 1814 which at that time was a warehouse on the dockside waterfront, before that land in front of it was reclaimed from the sea. It was originally built as a sugar warehouse twenty years before slavery was abolished and emancipation took place. An era when as many black people as white people owned and worked slaves in SVG including the Straker family, and was sometime after 1900 used for the islands lucrative arrowroot industry. Arrowroot was a major export of St. Vincent during the period 1900 to 1965.

This kind of spiteful behavior has been rendered to many Vincentians Marcus De Freitas another cousin of Gonsalves and an NDP supporter had his property in Kingstown taken from him by a compulsory purchase order. Then it was undervalued by the government in an attempt to rob him of the true value of the property. Marcus took it through the courts and eventually the courts recognized that he had been fleeced by the government and awarded him a much greater valuation. Yet years later to this very day despite the court ordering payment the Ralph Gonsalves controlled ULP government to pay him they have paid him nothing. I for one believe that no Vincentian in any ministry or department would dare treat relatives of the Gonsalves or Francis’s in such a way without the direct orders or sanction of PM Ralph Gonsalves, he claims it is not him, who do we believe?

Bigger Bigs who was conceived to be a Unity Labor Party [ULP] diehard supporter that went over to supporting the NDP, that’s when the trouble started for him and trumped up charges were made of excessive oil pollution of the ground where he was quarrying the aggregate called ‘rabacca stuff’. They closed him down and awarded a right of way through his land which never was previously a public right of way, ripping the hinges off his driveway gates. They insisted that he had stolen land that had increased in size because of the slight natural redirection of the river, but the rights Bigs had under the riparian owner laws made them look foolish in making such claims. He had stolen nothing and done nothing wrong except give some support to the NDP. It took him years to get the government to give him back his license. But in that time all his plant and machinery was vandalized and destroyed and is now worthless scrap. Despite the government being in the wrong they have never put him back financially to where he was and left him owing millions to the bank with the loss of employment for 60 workers. To date they have done none of the things that they led the public to believe they would do to help him that was all lies to try and quiet the public outcry at home and in the Diaspora.

The Kingstown Chamber of Commerce had operated the Kingstown central car park in Bay Street since its inception. They turned a muddy piece of filled waterside land into a car park and tarmac topped it at great expense. They operated it until they were conceived as anti ULP after some government criticism which was actually healthy advice. From then on the spite and malice machine came into operation. The car park was taken from them and given to a brand new company with a communist sounding name ‘Solidarity Inc’. Operated by an old comrade at arms of Ralph Gonsalves, Renick Rose. Both of whom were previously comrades in the Marxist political party the MNU. So an organization that one may describe as capitalist orientated was replaced by a company that I would describe as a Scientific Socialist organization. Quite simply an undemocratic political intervention which may also have been unconstitutional.

Then there were the irrigation workers whose job it was to ensure there was piped irrigation to farmers during the annual dry season which often ended up as a drought. An important job to keep agriculture production going. For several months they were kept at the works yard and not taken to the fields and hill farms. They were not paid for three months and when they asked for their money they were all laid off. Now the whole irrigation systems have been destroyed through no maintenance and the farmers no longer have water in the dry season. This action furthered the destruction of the agricultural sector which may seem to some to be a carefully planned scheme to destroy agriculture and replace it with tourism. Unfortunately under the Gonsalves ULP government both agriculture and tourism have been destroyed.

Then there was the Port Police who were again owed money and when they demanded it after a prolonged period of asking nicely, sooner than pay them what they were owed they were all laid off and replaced by the regular police force. The regular police now act in what some may call a Fascist type of operation at the Grenadines wharf, aggressively searching those going to Bequia and the Grenadines, yet not doing so to anyone arriving or going to any other part of Saint Vincent itself. Gonsalves is the minister in charge of the police and what he says must obviously go. So if he said don’t do that they would not do that.

Then there are 60 owners of land at Argyle whose only offence is to be perceived as NDP supporters, they have not been paid for their land nine years after it was taken from them to build the airport on. The majority of all the ULP supporters have been paid. Of course there are anomalies who are not direct NDP supporters who have not been paid for reasons of spite and malice like Junior Bacchus and a few others. One lady from Luton who came to collect her money was asked do you vote ULP to which she replied I do not vote I live in Luton. Unfortunately that was the wrong answer and she went home with much less than she came with.

Now Gonsalves keeps telling us that he had no hand in any of this. But he also tells us he is in control of every square inch of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. We know that Gonsalves micro manages everything, every ministry and every scheme and every project. We also know he is a self confirmed and self admitted liar. He himself told us he sometimes tells lies. We know every action and every press release and every Ministerial speech must have his personal permission and approval. So what are we to believe when he tells us none of this is of his doing?

He has lied to us continually about the Argyle airport finish date. He lied to the teachers when he told them they had the best agreement ever and then later told them they could not claim under the agreement because it was unconstitutional and therefore unenforceable. Yet he signed that agreement and as a lawyer he would never sign anything without knowing its complete content. He is also a constitutional expert an expert on agreements and contracts so when he said the agreement was the best ever he told a dastardly lie.

If none of the foregoing was any of his doing, as the prime minister he could have put wrong right at any juncture, he did not and he has not, and it appears he will not. So what does that tell us, what can we deduce from that?

So let’s see how the Cobblestone Inn fiasco fans out, let’s see if they can wreck the life of Ann Joshua like they nearly but not quite wrecked the life of Marcus De Freitas and Bigger Bigs and so many others.

It is within the power of Ralph Gonsalves to make or break Ann Joshua, let’s see if the man who is in overall charge of every square inch of SVG does the right thing. The country, region and World are watching. Or is this another one for the stink pot Ralph?

It’s time for all this spiteful malicious Marxist/Fascist nonsense to stop. I also ask Ralph Gonsalves to stop doing the work of Maurice Bishop because what is happening in SVG happened in Grenada under Bishop the spiteful and malicious leader of the Marxist revolution there. Bishop on proven documentary evidence was little more than a scumbag and to link Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in any way to him or such behavior as he administered is besmirching and damaging to the very image and very being of SVG.

Peter Binose: the anti Marxist and anti Fascist journalist blowing the tuba [the bugle was just not big enough for this matter] for decency and democracy.

END

DISCLAIMER: The opinion, belief and viewpoint expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinion, belief and viewpoint of iNews Cayman/ieyenews.com or official policies of iNews Cayman/ieyenews.com

IMAGE: www.hotels.com Cobblestone Inn St. Vincent and the Grenadines