An announcement by Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit that Antigua was the beneficiary of a large cash injection courtesy his country has been met with some astonishment by Antigua & Barbuda Finance Minister Harold Lovell.
“Every single country in the world is being affected by this global crisis, but Dominica is faring better than most because of the strong fiscal policies and the prudent management of the country…” Skerrit said.
“In the month of August of 2009 we gave to Antigua over $24 million of our money and ECCB to help them, because the country is having difficulty,” he was quoted by the online news service as saying.
But Lovell, speaking to Caribarena late last night, said he was in the dark as to what money Prime Minister Skerrit was speaking about.
He acknowledged that he had heard about the PM’s comments and instructed his technicians to do their own research, which uncovered nothing in relation to what Skerrit had said.
The only time Lovell recalled Dominica contributing anything financial to Antigua & Barbuda was in March when it allowed the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank to free up $6 million of its credit allocation to help in the bailout of Bank of Antigua after the first signs of the fall of the Stanford empire created a run on the bank.
Lovell is in the midst of parliamentary debate on Antigua and Barbuda’s 2010 Budget.
Skerrit said Anguilla was also on the receiving end of Dominica’s generosity. He said the UK-dependent territory received $12 million from Dominica as recently as last week.
At the time of writing, no one was available in the Anguilla government to confirm or deny this.
The campaign season in Dominica is at its peak as the country heads to the polls on December 18.
