KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC – Opposition Leader Dr. Ralph Gonsalves says he intends to take legal action against a local radio station and its owner over allegations made regarding the sale of land involving his youngest son. At the same time, he served as the prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Gonsalves said he was “defamed” when Luke Boyea, the owner of the radio station Hot 97, and two other persons were discussing the sale of 95 acres of private land at Spring, Bequia, and “basically saying that Storm got the land through corrupt practice by me.”
Gonsalves, whose Unity Labour Party (ULP) lost the November 2025 general elections after being in office for the past 25 years, said that in 2017, the government then had shown an interest in purchasing the land and had written a letter to the owner, Errol Layne, “ which he signed.
“Errol Layne indicated that the people didn’t want to sell the land. Certainly didn’t want to sell the land at that time. Subsequently, during COVID, apparently, they decided that they would sell the land.”
Gonsalves, an attorney, said that he wasn’t aware when his son bought the land, insisting that the government had “nothing to do with it; absolutely nothing to do with it. And there are people who know these facts I’m talking about”.
He said that while he is the owner of the radio station, it is his “dear second cousin…you will, no doubt, hear from my lawyer,” adding, “I want to tell you this, you are backing up the wrong tree.
“You’re backing up the wrong tree, and you and your sidekicks, watch your mouth. I have rights, you know, I have rights. And you’re tackling a warrior. That’s all I tell you for now. Still, I affirm that neither the government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines nor I had anything to do with the fact that Storm purchased the land at arm’s length, which the government had been interested in purchasing some few years earlier, and was told that they were not selling. “
Gonsalves said that his 34-year-old son, Storm, “an entrepreneur, who takes a lot of risks, is quite capable of defending himself, as he has done before.”
Boyea is quoted in the local media as saying he is unclear on what specific defamation claim is being made and will await formal correspondence from Gonsalves’s attorney, adding, “I find it difficult to believe that he did not know his son Storm Gonsalves bought the land.”
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