H E Adrian Davis
At his monthly press conference on Wednesday, March 4, 2015, H E Adrian sought to clear up his response about ‘not being duped” by or during the former administration with particular reference to the Montserrat Development Corporation (MDC). He made direct reference to The Montserrat Reporter’s reporting on the matter which of course quoted directly his response to the question as to whether he felt he ‘was duped’.
He raised then that not many matters relating to the MDC surfaced or were discussed at Cabinet, which we have shown in various articles and Editorials have the responsibility to discuss and set policies and ratify and approve material contracts and decisions made by the MDC board.
The Governor takes the position that other than matters relating to land nothing more came before Cabinet. The Governor was reminded often that MDC was the future of Montserrat, with Government (the people of Montserrat) the owners with Cabinet being the place where directives and decisions were mandated.
This is the Governor’s response to clarify his position. “I think the crucial issue is or the crucial question has been, did things relating to MDC come to cabinet in an appropriate fashion; and my assessment of thinking about all the issues with MDC is that things that did need to come to cabinet, did come to cabinet and they weren’t very many of those…, “ he said.
This is, “because the Montserrat Development Corporation is a limited company, it is under the control of the Government of Montserrat whom is the sole shareholder,” he stated.
He said further. “…the daily operational activities and policies and procedures are all dealt with by the board of directors and only when things need a specific agreement did things come to cabinet. So I believe that in terms of that governing structure what came to cabinet was appropriate to come to cabinet,” but he was not specific about this considering only lands issues were important issues.
“We dealt with those issues and therefore there was no kind of information gathered; and I certainly don’t feel that I was duped,” he concluded, confirming, “All I’m saying is that my locus in relation to MDC was my role in relation to MDC.”
He added that there is also a reference to the fact that as to whether the DIFID representative then, Dr. (Kato) Kimbugwe who was on the MDC board was in some sense duped. We say, however, there was no such reference, as he the Governor states Dr. Kimbugwe was on the board and several other boards and committees and would have been privy to much of what was going on. He said Dr. Kimbugwe can speak for himself (he is now way down in Africa, but we will reach him). “…all I can say is that both Dr. Kimbugwe and Mr. Dawson have lots and lots of responsibility so that from Kato’s point of view operating on the board was just one of many responsibilities and he had lots of other things to do,” the Governor confirmed.
We pointed out to the Governor the relevant sections in the byelaws of the MDC which showed that the Government (Cabinet) was by law (as TMR has shown) required to carry out certain actions sanctioning by way of resolutions from Cabinet meetings.
To this the Governor said he would seek to rely on the interpretations of the Attorney General.
The Governor was pressed for details of his explanation which was little different from before said, “MDC was only in so far as I chair cabinet and discussions were held about MDC – Cabinet. Those discussions were fairly straightforward in terms of land demarcation in Little Bay and there was only about two or three occasions when MDC was raised.”
On the issue, he said, “I’ve always said that there were two or three occasions where we talked about land demarcation in Little Bay in Cabinet and that was the only time that MDC came up; and the issue is whether that was appropriate. Whether other things should have come to Cabinet, my view is that they probably shouldn’t have done because what ought to have been done ought to have been dealt with by the Board of directors. It should have been dealt with by the Board of Directors.”
