KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC -St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves said Wednesday he would neither confirm nor deny sending any correspondence to his Antigua and Barbuda counterpart, Gaston Browne, regarding the construction of a multi-million dollar (One EC dollar = 0.37 cents) official residence for the Governor of the St. Kitts-based Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), Timothy Antoine.
“I do not want to say more than I have said there, and I’m not confirming or denying any correspondence I’ve sent or alleged to have been sent until I consider the appropriate time. I try not to get ahead of myself,” Gonsalves said on his weekly program on the state-owned NBC Radio.
But in the letter, Gonsalves suggests that “the Governor of his motion may wish to consider whether or not his continued occupancy of his Office is tenable in all the circumstances.
On February 17, 2025, Gonsalves wrote to Prime Minister Browne, “This’s likely to be a painful, personal decision. ”
According to the letter, a copy of which has been obtained by the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC), Gonsalves wrote to the Antigua and Barbuda leader, indicating that he had become aware of the matter through his Finance Minister Camillo Gonsalves, who is also a member of the Monetary Council of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU).
He said the finance minister had advised him “regarding the extraordinary sum of EC$22 million being expended by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank Governor to construct an official residence for the Governor.
“This act of excessive spending is outrageous,” Gonsalves wrote in his letter to Prime Minister Browne, adding, “It’s an absolute scandal.
“Cleary there has been an insufficient transparency by the Governor on this matter, and the oversight expected by the internal review mechanisms of the ECCB, the Board of Directors of the Bank, and the Monetary Council has been below acceptable or prudent standards.’
The ECCB serves as a central bank for Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and St. Kitts-Nevis, the countries that, together with the British territories of Montserrat and Anguilla, form the ECCU.
Prime Minister Gonsalves told Browne, the chairman of the ECCU Monetary Council, that the spending on the residence “rests at the feet of the Governor” and that “such an appalling lack of judgment, pursuit of apparent vainglory, and a lack of sensitivity or prudence, invites disciplinary action.”
In the three-page letter, Gonsalves said that the ECCU could not countenance an expenditure of at least EC$22 million on a 10,000-square-foot “mansion of veritable palace proportions,” especially at a time when the region’s people are facing substantial economic challenges, including rising food prices and the haunting specter of increased poverty or immiseration.
“The ECCU cannot afford a Governor who has an appetite for such affordable opulence,” Gonsalves wrote, adding that he has been advised that the “palace project is so advanced that it has to be completed.”
Gonsalves said that he had supported Antoine’s appointment and remains opposed to the Governor occupying such a residence.
“I suggest that the Monetary Council consider selling it to the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis to be used for whatever purpose it divines,” he said, adding that “this suggestion, of course, depends on the magnanimity of the government of St. Kitts and Nevis to save the face of the Bank from ignominy.”
Gonsalves also advocated for “suitable and comfortable accommodation” for the ECCB governor, adding, “I am trying to rescue the Governor, whom I admire greatly, from this monumental blunder.”
Gonsalves said he is aware that this matter will enter the public domain, but he told his Antigua and Barbuda counterpart that as prime minister and responsive to the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, he is “unable to defend this wholly indefensible project.”
The prime minister told radio listeners that while he is not a subject he would want to comment upon at this stage, he is aware of a “journalist who might have a letter who wants me to confirm whether or not I wrote that letter.”
He said the way the question is framed. He is “not prepared at this stage to comment,” adding that if he wanted the matter to be ventilated “publicly about any issue as alleged, I would have already done public ventilation.
“Government involves knowing when to do certain things in the public space and when not to do them In the public space. These are matters of judgment. However, there is indeed a dwelling that the Central Bank is building for the Governor, where the price tag is wholly excessive and does not reflect a particular level of prudence.
“And that is a matter on which I was recently advised, and it’s a matter on which I have engaged my colleagues, and it is a matter which I am hopeful would be resolved in a manner which is satisfactory to the people or the currency union, and also, very much the people of St Vincent and the Grenadines.”
and then 