PM denounces treatment of former President of the Caribbean Development Bank

Not fair! Prime Minister, Dr Ralph Gonsalves has denounced the treatment of the former President of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), calling it unfair, and expressed the view that members of its Board of Governors were dismissive of a letter he wrote to them on May 2, 2024.

In the letter to the Chairman of the CDB Board of Governors, and copied to Board Members, the Prime Minister made his first public comments on an outstanding matter between the CDB and its former President, Dr Hyginus ‘Gene’ Leon, who was sent on administrative leave in January this year and who has since resigned from the regional financial institution.

In the letter, Prime Minister Gonsalves said Leon ought not to have been sent on administrative leave which was said to be part of an ongoing administrative process at the Barbados based CDB.

In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by SEARCHLIGHT, the Prime Minister described Leon, a national of Saint Lucia, as “a distinguished son of our Caribbean civilization”.

He said he wrote to the CDB Board of Governors because of “an unwavering commitment to the maintenance of the CDB’s integrity, and abiding concern for our region’s further ennoblement”, pointing out that the CDB is the “Premier repository of development finance in our region”.

Dr Gonsalves was in Africa at the time when the matter arose between the CDB and its former president, and prior to now, he had made no public comments on the matter.

“I harboured no suspicion that the swift reference under the rules of the Bank to a selected investigating firm, was effected by other than an unsullied motivation for good of the Bank and its President,” he wrote.

He, however, also informed the chair of the CDB Board in the letter of his unease “ about the speed and peremptory manner upon which the entire expedition was launched”.

This, Dr Gonsalves pointed out, included the seizure of the former President’s electronic devices, and him being sent on administrative leave.

The membership of the OECS attempted to “prod the Bank’s governorship in the direction of and sensibility on the matter at hand” through the efforts of the St Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister,Terrence Drew.

Dr Gonsalves outlined that this attempt by the OECS was met by “haughty, nay rude response” from the Bank, through an American Law firm, and that this response “ was lacking in elemental civility, or good manners.”

The Prime Minister said he believes that a combination of happenings were done so that the public would believe that the CDB’s former president “had committed egregious wrongs”.

Leon tendered his resignation one day before the investigator’s report was to be submitted to the bank’s Board of Governors.

Dr Gonsalves also was critical of the contents of the report, which he said sought to “weave tattered threads into a twisted fabric upon which to ground a narration to justify the Bank’s actions”.

Among other things, the investigator’s report was critical of the President’s many overseas travels, both regionally and internationally, and his preferred mode of air transport by charter on Executive Air.

Calling the evidence presented in the investigator’s report, “flimsy”, Dr Gonsalves argued that “ there is nothing in the investigator’s report to impugn credibly the integrity, transparency, competence and quality of the President’s leadership and performance”.

He said he is adamant in his stance that the former President “ought never to have been sent on administrative leave, much less, treated in a manner as if he were an itinerant casual worker, accused of pilfering his master’s precious China”.

In expressing faith in the former President, Dr Gonsalves stated that Dr Leon’s “integrity remains intact, though unsuccessful attempts were made to have it impugned”.

Speaking on NBC radio on Wednesday May 8, 2024, Dr Gonsalves said he was told that the CDB governors were advised not to pay any attention to his letter.

“I don’t know how truthful that is,” he told radio listeners.

St Vincent and the Grenadines is represented on the CDB’s Board of Governors by Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Camillo Gonsalves, and by Recardo Frederick Director of Economic Planning.

In his letter to the CDB earlier this year, Dr Leon expressed the view that he will never be treated fairly, after being sent on administrative leave in January.

The letter was sent to the Bank through Dr Leon’s lawyers. Last month, lawyers for De Leon gave the bank until May 4, to negotiate an amicable separation” with the former CDB president.