Premier of Nevis Mark Brantley slams NRP leader Dr Janice Hodge

St Kitts and Nevis: Premier of Nevis and leader of Concerned Citizens Movement Mark Brantley has recently taken social media and slammed Nevis Reform Party (NRP) leader Dr Janice Daniel-Hodge for choosing to have former Governor of the USVI John P de Jongh endorse her.

He outlined, “Now of all the people living in the world that the NRP leader could have got to endorse her at her launch, she chose to have former Governor of the USVI John P de Jongh endorse her.”

“Since then, the NRP has been hiding behind his endorsement for their leader’s failure to answer burning questions about her tenure at the Coastal Zone Management Unit when several of her team members went to jail for corruption,” Premier Brantley further mentioned.

Furthermore, the CCM leader highlighted, “Imagine my ‘shock’ when I googled the Governor to find this article and realised that the man chosen by NRP to endorse its leader was himself arrested and charged for embezzlement of public monies. Embezzlement is a fancy word, but in Brown Hill, we call that tiefing government money.

Now I don’t know the former Governor, but the NRP has put him in the middle of this election by using his endorsement of its leader as an excuse for her absolute refusal to answer burning questions about her leadership of this corrupt unit in the USVI.”

He further emphasised that now there are even more questions than answers.

Premier Brantley has made this announcement after Acting Attorney General Claude Walker informed about the arrest of Governor John P de Jongh and former director of the Virgin Islands Public Finance Authority Jr Julito Francis, at a press conference at the Department of Justice here at 11:00 am, on July 20 (Wednesday). The Attorney General informed that the arrest was first thought to be a federal and local effort.

This arrest will assist the investigation team in unsealing federal documents by The Virgin Islands Consortium. One of the documents, during the investigation, informed about the involvement of Jongh in a deeply weaved government corruption culture.