The UDP today held its first press conference under party leader Shyne Barrow. He's only one month into his leadership - but Barrow is trying to energize the UDP going into village council elections which start in mid May.
And, the new leader thinks he's found the pole which will vault the UDP into prime position going into the elections. That's the Diany Chan fiasco - where Prime Minister John Briceno has admitted that he directly intervened with a Forestry officer to stop him from seizing Chan's plants. Three of the types of plants she imported are listed by CITES - and had no importation permit from Forestry; while another is considered an invasive species. The Prime Minister said he was trying to protect a business person's investment - but today the UDP said the Prime Minister abused is power and now - they say - a blameless Forestry officer named Daniel Chi has been unfairly penalized for it:
Shyne Barrow, UDP Party Leader
"Daniel Chi was instructed to confiscate those illegal species of plants and invasive species. The Prime Minister had instructions given to Mr. Chi for the proprietor at hand to have those illegal species returned to her and when it was returned, they hurled all types of insults. This is according to the report of Mr. Chi. That is not how good governance works."
Mike Peyrefitte, UDP Senator
"If you can remember, that was one of the hallmarks of their campaign. They are going to do things to reduce the ministerial interference and then you have the Prime Minister comes on national TV and says, yes, I try to interfere, in a plant situation for which he had no business and if you ask me, he was saying that maybe Jose Mai needs to resign, because the explanation he gave from what I heard was that Mai has no influence in his ministry. So, Mai couldn't cut it, Mai couldn't do nothing about it, so he had to send for his boss to make the call."
"So, what is going here, we always hear about public servants not standing up, not doing their job - the message you send is that you have a public officer standing up and then he is penalized. So what's the message? What do you do when they tell you the prime minister is calling?"
Shyne Barrow, UDP Party Leader
"Abusing their ministerial powers, while passing motions in the house for good governance and giving training to the public officers for good governance and doing the exact opposite. How could we tolerate this as a country and when you see the Prime Minister having contempt for the laws of this land, having contempt for the policies that govern public officers. The CEO in the ministry for Mr. Daniel Chi had no authority to put Mr. Chi on any administrative leave. According to the regulation, all that the CEO could have done was offer a warning in the first instance and I believe this is Mr. Chi's first instance. He had no authority to put him on administrative leave."
In his internal report, Forester Daniel Chi says he was quote, "Completely demoralized....because of ONE woman who refuses to obey the law. They...started firing all sorts of insults. One statement that stands out is that the Forest Department will always have to bow down." End quote.
UDP Leader Barrow pointed out that Diany Chan's mother in law - who the Prime Minister called directly so that he could speak to Forester Chi on site - has been an employee of the Briceno family business for 20 years.
So, the PM was doing a personal favor - he says he did it in the name of business - since the shipment of more than 60 thousand plants - by his assessment - was in peril. But today Barrow noted that for the head of government of a country which just floated a Blue Bond - to make a call that goes against the permit requirements for CITES which is a conservation convention, well, that strikes a dissonant note:
Shyne Barrow, UDP Party Leader
"But if you're going to be true conservationist then protect the endangered species. What type of hypocrisy is that, what type of betrayal to being environmental friendly and aware of our responsibilities to override the public officer who is following through on the policies spelt out just to do a favour. So, we would violate an international convention, so the Prime Minister can do a favour."
