A call to rise up in Grenada

by Leroy Noel

Thursday, August 19, 2004

ST. GEORGE'S Grenada: Former permanent secretary in the Prime Minister's Ministry and former speech writer, Cajeton Hood, has suggested that Grenadians should rise up in light of a one man commission to inquire into allegations of bribery by Prime Minister Mitchell.

According to Hood, "My admonition to all who are Grenadian is that we rise up and protest against this one man, restricted and confusing commission and demand that we have a focused, unfettered commission with more than one commissioner.”

He says if there are any interested in the truth, in balance, in the public welfare, then there is a need to have more than one commissioner for obvious reasons. He added the stakes are much too high and the issues much too important.

Hood believes that there is an attempt to confuse and limit the commission and outlined "Section 7 of Cap. 58 declares that the duty of the Commissioners, after taking the oath, is to make a full, faithful, and impartial inquiry into the matter specified in the commission and to conduct the inquiry in accordance with the directions given".

“Now the matter that needs to be inquired into is the specific allegation by Offshore Alert and not the weak defence of the Prime Minister to the charge against him. What he has already said is well said and consigned to history.”

Hood noted, "We have not had a big problem with how diplomatic representatives have been appointed in the past and how our public officers account for Government money. The Prime Minister knows exactly what he should have done because he has done it correctly before.

“Section 7 specifically envisages a single matter in order to give focus to the Inquiry, not several matters to confuse the real issues.

“Why try to tell the Commission when and where to sit when there is ample provision for that to be decided by the commission itself in section 9 of Cap. 58"?

“Section 10 of Cap. 58 gives the Commissioners the same powers as the High Court to summon witnesses, call for documents, examine witnesses and gives the commissioners wide protection. Let the commissioners decide which witnesses they wish to examine and then let them make the request. The state machinery should then be available to the commissioners to arrange the attendance of the witnesses that they request.”

Mr. Hood clarified that section 11 implies that the Prime Minister cannot sue Mr. Marchand, Mr. Bass and Mr. Resteiner for their testimony before the commission and Mr. Wildman cannot have them arrested and charged with criminal libel, because they will enjoy the privileges as if they are giving evidence before the High Court.

“Let it be clearly known that this attempt to obfuscate the issues and to waste our time and money will not work. We are wise to the intentions of those who are trying to cover up the facts and as a people we will get to the bottom of this one."

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