ST. VINCENT | Gonsalves says evidence against CDB former president Leon is “flimsy”

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, May 7, - St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves has come to the defence of the former president of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) Dr. Hyginus “Gene “ Leon, whom he described as “a distinguished son of our Caribbean civilization from St. Lucia”.

In a letter addressing Leon’s situation, Gonsalves said as far as he was concerned,   “Gene Leon’s integrity remains intact, though unsuccessful attempts were made to have it impugned. He comes out of this sordid matter without blemish or wrong-doing attached to him. This distinguished son of our Caribbean civilisation ought not to be lynched, metaphorically, any further”.

The Long serving SVG prime minister noted that “it certainly does not suit the bank (CDB) to have its folly forensically examined in excruciating detail in the robust legal system in Barbados or elsewhere.

Gonsalves pointed out that  “unsuccessful attempts” had been made to impugn his character and  Last month, lawyers representing Leon, gave the CDB until May 4 “to negotiate an amicable separation” indicating also that their correspondence should be viewed “as our client’s pre-action protocol letter” regarding the entire situation.

The St. Lucia-based law firm, Fosters, said it would be moving to the courts in Barbados “or any other jurisdiction more appropriate, to enforce our client’s legal and constitutional rights”.

“ The “flimsy” nature of the evidence presented in the investigator’s report and the “concocted narrative of malfeasance or wrong-doing" lack persuasiveness; there is nothing compelling here. ”

”I do not have to read and spell for the Governors of the Bank; The former president, Mr. Leon, has been injured, and as he has suffered loss and damage, certain things flow inexorably from all this. The Bank ought to address this with the same urgency with which it acted at the start of this awful saga; and the Bank ought to act with a large generosity of spirit,” Gonsalves said.

The swiftness of the CDB to send Leon on administrative leave, the dismissive nonchalance of Prime Minister Drew’s queries and the US law firm’s “contemptuous relay of the Chairman’s instructions, all conspired to create the public perception that the Bank’s President had committed egregious wrongs”.

Speaking of the investigator’s report  Gonsalves said “I have read it carefully. Its contents are threadbare and underwhelming. The report seeks to weave tattered threads into a twisted fabric upon which to ground a narration to justify the Bank’s actions; but it has failed, and all persons of reasonableness, judicious temper and balanced judgement, would so conclude.”

Gonsalves said that the “flimsy” nature of the evidence presented in the investigator’s report and the “concocted narrative of malfeasance or wrong-doing" lack persuasiveness; there is nothing compelling here.

“Indeed, the evidence, taken at its highest, leaves a reasonable and fair-minded reader, whether in the councils of the Bank or in the taverns across any Caribbean country, with the inescapable conclusion that the President was, from the outset, the victim of a stitch-up job,” Gonsalves wrote.

In his letter, Gonsalves said that the people of the Caribbean “may rightly demand to know why an American firm, and not one of the inestimable value from the Caribbean, was chosen to conduct the investigation of Gene Leon.

“And what is the paternity and history of this firm? I am sure that the people of our region may wish to know, too, how much has the Bank paid for the investigation of and report on Gene Leon,” Gonsalves said, urging all stakeholders “let us bring it all to an end…”.

The following is the full text of Prime Minister Gonsalves’ letter.

In January it was disclosed that Leon had been sent on administrative leave until April this year, as “an ongoing administrative process” continued at the region’s premier financial institution.

The CDB has remained mum on the circumstances surrounding the decision to send the economist on administrative leave, with the acting president Isaac Solomon, confirming at a bank news conference in February that “there is an internal administrative process involving the president”.

In a five-page letter sent to the chairman of the CDB Board of Governors, Harjit Sajjan, who is also Canada’s Minister of International Development, Gonsalves wrote that he had refrained from making any commentary, “save in private” on the contretemps between the bank’s governorship and leadership and Leon.

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