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| DCP FACILITY IN BELFAST |
During the reign
of the UWP government, Soca artist and Calypsonian Derick St Rose aka King Hunter sang a catchy song “They Sucking the Country they Sucking the
Country Dry” At the time King Hunter was concerned about the alleged UWP
corruption. Unfortunately, if we now ask King Hunter to sing the same song he will
most likely become "Mighty Moo Moo"or he may have to write additional lyrics on
his palm to say “King Hunter sign for building material from government IPO." But Mighty
Moo Moo is just a small part of the current
“sucking dry" problems in Dominica. It is the hypocrisy and the
avarice of Skerrit’s apologists and
hanger-ons like Yvor Nassief that we must keep our eyes on. Since King Hunter/
Mighty Moo Moo will not sing about
corruption anymore we will sing our own creole folk song about corruption- “las Sousay Mwen Lapo Reng Deng , las sousay
Mwen.”
Is Yvor Nassief Now Enthusiastic About Agriculture
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| YVOR NASSIEF |
Dominicans
should never forget that it was Yvor Nassief who promoted the idea of
abandoning agriculture for tourism. It was during Yvor Nassief‘s“Dollar
A Year” stint as Minister of Tourism, that he said “if I had one dollar in my pocket I would
invest it in tourism and NOT
agriculture.” Upon the advice of Yvor Nassief, PM Roosevelt Skerrit, his cronies
and apologists marketed the fallacy that an agricultural society is a third
world phenomenon and that agrarian societies are doomed to fail. Since then Dominica
has become a “Passportarian Society”
printing and selling passports as the main source of Revenue. Yvor Nassief
is an integral part of the passport selling business through his company Safe Haven Offshore Ltd.
Just when agriculture is at its lowest in Dominica ,Yvor the agriculture pessimist is suddenly optimistic about another run at DCP?
The closure of
the DCP Palmolive plant in the Belle Fast area has dealt a severe blow to the Dominican economy. The already sluggish productive sector took a nose dive and the lingering high unemployment
situation has been has augmented. We are happy with the decision to resuscitate
the Dominica Coconut Products (DCP) operation and the promise to restore some
of the lost jobs and provide the farmers with some market opportunities. However we have every reason to question the hypocrisies of Yvor Nassief who allegedly has accepted
over $2 Million dollars in loans from CBI funds for the DCP restoration project.
DCP was started
in 1965 and was built on the hard work of Elias Nassief and the farmers who provided the company
with coconuts which the company converted into soaps and other body hygiene and
beauty products. In 1995 and at the zenith moment of DCP, the company was sold to Colgate Palmolive allegedly for an eight figure sum. It is safe to assume that the new
DCP will again be very much dependent upon the agricultural industry for the supply of raw material- The very same industry that Yvor Nassief declared a third world concept and improbable.
It is only logical that we question Yvor's motive- If Yvor Nassief
will not invest one dollar out of his pocket for agriculture, why would he be willing to accept over $2 Million from PM Roosevelt Skerrit to invest in the
revitalization of DCP- a company totally dependent on agricultural products for raw material? If so did
Ivor Nassief receive an epiphany or is it just another opportunity for Yvor and his selfish motives.
We must also take note that while Ivor hands
are out stretched accepting the free CBI money for the revamping of DCP, it is
alleged that Yvor Nassief was very persistent about selling DCP to
Colgate Palmolive. According to our anticorruption colleagues in the Caribbean region ,Yvor was interested in other investment opportunities in the Caribbean and therefore wanted
nothing to do with the perpetuation of the DCP and so daddy Phillip Nassief at the time was left with no choice but to sell off the company.
For the sake of
the marginalized farmers and the displaced former employees of DCP Colgate
Palmolive, we hope that there is sincerity and a full fledge commitment in the effort to revamp the old DCP
operation. We trust that the alleged $2 Million loaned to Yvor Nassief will yield positive results and that
we will not have another Coffee Factory moment in Dominica.
Douglas Simon and The Public Work Corporation
In keeping with
the sucking theme MiTC would also like to ask the PM Roosevelt Skerrit – what
is the situation with the Public Works Corporation beach front property?
In 2011 PM
Skerrit responded to allegations that the PWC site was sold to some Chinese
interest. In responding the PM said that “the
sale of the property has not been settled because the matter has not come back
to the cabinet for final decision; the ministry Of Lands has been discussing
with the interested party the final selling price. “ Since we have not
heard anything we can assume that either the property had been sold in
2011 and as customary it was none of the people’s darn business or that the property
may have been in abeyance since 2011.
We have received unconfirmed information that the PWC property on the waterfront is now owned by someone using an alias name Douglas Simon on Facebook. At this point we are not sure who Douglas Simon
is however we know that this Facebook character Douglas Simon has vigorously defended corruption in the Roosevelt
Skerrit regime. According to our sources Douglas Simon is a wealthy Dominican
who also happen to have passport selling privileges. MiTC is actively working on more details regarding the current ownership of the PWC property but in the interim we hope that someone can unmask Douglas Simon.
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