BASSETERRE, ST. KITTSCUOPM) – The Liamuiga Times is reporting that the founder of Operation Rescue, Dwyer Astaphan is indicating that hundreds, if not thousands of civil servants and auxiliary workers, will be dismissed if a Unity Government takes office in St. Kitts and Nevis.
According to the report, posted on the St. Kitts-Nevis List, Astaphan is the mastermind behind the formation of a Unity Government, comprising elected representatives from the opposition People’s Action Movement (PAM), the Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM), Mr. Sam Condor and Dr. Timothy Harris.
It reports that in responding to an accusation from Alistair Yearwood, the NRP’s representative on Inside the News on Saturday, that Operation Rescue has remained silent, while the CCM, one of the party in the Unity configuration was dismissing scores of NRP supporters in Nevis, following the recent local government elections, Astaphan said the Unity Government will and must clean house.
"Yes because the country is in a mess….We the people gun clean house, the place needs to get cleaned up, the country needs to be cleaned," said Astaphan.
The report continued: "Yearwood began his presentation on Saturday by raising the issues of victimisation, polarization and nepotism by the new Nevis Island Administration.
"I am going to talk again about the systematic polarization, victimization, nepotism which has been taken to new heights, new levels never seen before in the Federation over in Nevis at the moment. Whether you call it, the put out policy or the clean house policy, we say a systematic set of firings of perceived NRP supporters in Nevis are being replaced by CCM supporters.
I think CCM talked about trimming the fat, but to me they are replacing it with blubber. I have done some research with all of the new hirings and I got up to a figure of a monthly cost of $225,000 and counting. I haven’t yet identified the AC contracts for maintenance, the cleaning contracts for cleaning the government’s offices, the landscaping contracts and additional workers; I don’t have all those figures as yet," said Yearwood.
He pointed out that on his way to the programme last Saturday, he was informed that four women were verbally told that they will be getting their letters of termination this week.
"So the carnage continues in Nevis. This was said on the platform. This was an election promise and it coming to fruition and coming from the Unity Party platform. We hear ‘we gun clean house’ statement and should they (Unity Party) ever get into power, you will see the carnage that is happening in Nevis and there has never been political polarization in Nevis yet," said Yearwood.
"Dwyer you mentioned the colour of shoes right and then you talk about Integrity in Public Life and Transparency. Well I have been coming here week after week and saying that I have lost all respect for the NGO"s – The Bar Association, Operation Rescue, I call it the Unity Party, You have the Christian Council, Evangelical Association, all of these organizations.You all are willing to talk out against the Prime Minister but when you have systematic victimization of persons and I am not talking about advisors to the government because they leave whenever the government changes; I am talking about minimum wage workers, systematic cleaning of the green shoe people and replacing them with the blue shoe people.
This is Polarizing, Nepotism; you are talking about Integrity in Public Life, transparency and these are your partners in Nevis behaving like this….how come you don’t talk out against them?," said Yearwood, adding:
"As I said the systematic victimization of the minimum wage workers in Nevis. No one is speaking out against it in St. Kitts. I have lost all respect in Operation Rescue because it seems that they are only interested in rescuing their own interest and rescuing PAM."
Photo: Mr G. A. Dwyer Astaphan