ANTIGUA | When the Powerful Hide Behind Public Funds

All is not copasetic in Antigua, and The Alfa Nero Saga Exposes Antigua and Barbuda's Culture of Impunity

ST.JOHN'S Antigua and Barbuda, April 2025 - by D. Gisele Isaac. "If you spit in the air, it falls back on your face." This ancient wisdom seems lost on Prime Minister Gaston Browne, who once boldly declared he possessed no hidden wealth and dared the public to search for assets in his name.

Now, as US subpoenas loom over his financial records, our taxpayers are bizarrely expected to foot the legal bill for his defense. The irony would be delicious if it weren't so expensive.

Last week's Cabinet Notes revealed the latest twist in the never-ending Alfa Nero yacht saga. Taxpayers are now being conscripted to finance an unnamed American law firm to fight subpoenas granted by a Federal judge. These subpoenas, requested by Yulia Guryeva Motlokhov's legal team, seek financial records from the prime minister and other government officials.

Suddenly, the Administration that couldn't be bothered to show Parliament the yacht's sales transaction has miraculously produced documentation, with breakdowns of disbursements magically materializing on social media.

Nothing, it seems, motivates transparency from this government quite like the threat of American legal scrutiny. This begs the obvious question: if everything about the Alfa Nero sale was legitimate and above board, why were we, the citizens, kept in the dark until now? And more pressingly, why must our dwindling public treasury be ransacked to shield the prime minister's personal financial records from examination?

The prime minister's selective approach to privacy borders on the pathological. He gleefully broadcasts citizens' private information on Facebook and his radio program—from Transport Board financials to the bank account numbers of political opponents like myself. My own Integrity Commission filings were "well dissected at the Cabinet level," according to insiders. Yet when the spotlight turns toward his finances, suddenly privacy becomes sacred and taxpayer-funded lawyers become essential.

If, as he claims, there are no secret accounts and no significant assets to discover, what precisely are we paying to protect? While citizens face economic hardship—with potential food shortages looming if US port fees increase—why divert precious resources to shield not just the prime minister but apparently his family members and billionaire shareholders in the West Indies Oil Company?

One wonders about the unspoken calculus happening within Cabinet. Are all members truly on board with this expenditure, even those secretly salivating at the prospect of a US court doing what they lack the courage to do themselves? I can almost hear some of them now, rubbing their hands together whispering, "Convention? No! Prosecution? Yes!"

The hypocrisy reaches new heights when you consider this same Administration recently capitulated to US demands regarding Cuban medical aid without apparent consultation with Cuba. Yet now they bristle at financial disclosure requests from American courts. Even more puzzling, this government had no qualms about raising hopes that the FBI would investigate the murder of a sitting Member of Parliament. So what, precisely, are they afraid of now?

Let's be brutally honest: without intervention from US courts and disclosure from US banks, Antiguans and Barbudans will never see the conclusion of this political soap opera. Our own agencies tasked with accountability—the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Police Force, the Integrity Commission, the Electoral Commission—have proven themselves either toothless or terrified. Justice in matters involving the political elite has become a fantasy under this Administration.

We have grown numb to corruption, nepotism, and insider trading, as nothing is ever done regardless of how blatant the offense. Need evidence? Consider the Odebrecht bribery scandal where Antigua and Barbuda featured prominently. Has there been any investigation into the bank through which payments flowed, or the allegations against the prime minister himself? Any ordinary citizen or businessman would surely want such clouds of suspicion definitively cleared.

Or take the Mehul Choksi abduction—another international embarrassment implicating our government alongside those of Dominica and India. The prime minister oddly volunteered details about "honey-traps" and a "dinner cruise with a girlfriend" before advising that this "legitimate citizen" shouldn't be returned to Antigua where he would enjoy constitutional rights. When our police report eventually confirmed Choksi's claims and proved collusion, the victim himself had to petition the courts to have the crime prosecuted. Since then, silence.

What of the investigation into the phantom Antigua Airways flights that abandoned hundreds of West Africans here? Our reputation was sacrificed for some secretive arrangement between the Cabinet and a Nigerian printer, with citizenship-by-investment passports thrown in as sweeteners. The governor-general assured the Opposition that the attorney-general was investigating, making a commission of inquiry unnecessary. Yet another international scandal without a trace of accountability.

One wonders: with President Trump's deportation campaign in full swing, where will those illegal immigrants who continued to the United States be sent? Back to Cameroon despite having left for Nigeria? Or here to Antigua, where the Administration claimed they were welcome to live and work?

If we have failed to properly investigate even the killing of Manny James, what hope do we have of honest scrutiny into the Alfa Nero affair? Under different circumstances, I might entertain philosophical discussions about sovereignty, privacy, and American interference in our affairs. But not today. If Antiguans and Barbudans must pay for this legal defense, then we deserve to know the truth—and frankly, I'm not particular about where that truth comes from.

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Dame Gisele Isaac is Chair of the United Progressive Party of Antigua and Barbuda, and a former Speaker of the Antigua and Barbuda House Of Representatives.

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