The United Workers Party (UWP) has dismissed claims by Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre that it is time to move on from Rovergate, the name given to the issue with Tourism Minister Ernest Hilaire and the importation of his Range Rover Discovery vehicle when he was St. Lucia’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.
The UWP named the issue Rovergate insisting that it cannot be inconvenient to the SLP to maintain principles of transparency and accountability because it involves one of their own.
“It was Philip J. Pierre and the Saint Lucia Labour Party which campaigned on transparency and accountability during the lead up to the last general elections in 2021. It is nothing short of inappropriate for Philip J. Pierre to insist that the people of St. Lucia ignore the serious implications which the actions in Rovergate have for our country,” stated the UWP in a statement.
Claiming that the case had not been resolved in the courts as Pierre wants the people to believe but rather it was withdrawn, the UWP asked Pierre to answer two very pertinent questions:
1. Who authorized the Range Rover to be registered in the name of Saint Lucia?
2. Who authorized, and by what mechanism, was the Range Rover transferred out of the name of the State to Ernest Hilaire?
Noted the UWP, “The attendance of Philip J Pierre as prime minister of Saint Lucia and Speaker of the House of Parliament, Claudius Francis, in the courthouse during the case are of grave concern, further compounded by Pierre’s statement to the press that he was there to “ensure that justice was served,”
“It is actions like this which undermine the confidence of the People and cause them to fear political interference in having the CCJ as our final court of appeal. Prime Minister Philip J Pierre must also understand that the SLP win at the last general elections does not absolve wrongdoings by any of its members,’ the UWP stated, calling for justice to be served.