CPL tickets slur is ‘red herring’ by St Kitts-Nevis government, says ex-PM

Allegations that the previous government in St Kitts and Nevis purchased tickets to cricket matches to buy votes has been labelled a “red herring” by the former prime minister.

Earlier this week WIC News reported that Prime Minister Timothy Harris said that when his Team Unity coalition came to power in 2015 they discovered over 8,000 tickets for Caribbean Premier League (CPL) cricket matches had been purchased in the run-up to the general election.

This would have cost more than $73,000 of taxpayers money.

WIC News has been unable to independently verify these claims.

And Denzil Douglas, who was the federation’s prime minister from 1995 and 2015, has hit back at the claims, accusing the government of avoiding the real issues in the county.

[caption id="attachment_1079" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Denzil Douglas, leader of the opposition and former prime minister of St Kitts and Nevis.[/caption] “The concocted story about the Labour administration and the 2014 CPL games is nothing but a red herring to divert people's attention from its lost credibility as a government and the severe mismanagement of the economy which has resulted in hardships to the people, to the point that citizens are unable to afford US$25 for entrance tickets to witness the games,” the opposition leader told WIC News.

Team Unity offering tickets ‘freely’

Prime Minister Harris didn’t hold back when he alledged wrongdoing by the previous St Kitts-Nevis Labour Party administration.

“When we came to office, the people at the CPL sent us an outstanding invoice from the office of the member for number six [Denzil Douglas] where he took… over 8,000 tickets for CPL, over 8,000 tickets for the CPL to give away to buy voters affection for the 2015 election [and] charged it to the public purse,” he said.

[caption id="attachment_3019" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Prime Minister Timothy Harris.[/caption]

“This is misappropriation of the public purse for any government to take up public money, pick and choose who they will give money to go to the park to watch the CPL games and have it charged against the public purse.”

But Douglas responded by attacking the current coalition’s record in this area, stating that the move from opposition to government has not been easy for them.

“The credibility of the coalition government of Dr Harris is at an all time low,” he said.

“The PAM [People’s Action Movement] party, one of the partners of the present coalition regime, was severely critical of the Labour administration for its investment in developing the cricket stadium at Warner Park to host the Cricket World Cup tournament matches here in St Kitts Nevis in 2007.

“Similarly the coalition parties, when they were in opposition and without any vision and foresight for advancing sports tourism, were harshly condemning of the Labour administration for investing in hosting the CPL final matches here in St Kitts in 2014.

Now that they are in government and realise the likelihood of the stadium stands being empty because people are not buying the tickets for the games, the Harris regime has secured thousands of tickets from the CPL organisers and have given them freely to their party political supporters, with the exclusion of opposition supporters.

“In fact [they] reluctantly provided complimentary tickets to opposition parliamentarians two days after the four days of matches had already started.”

When approached by WIC News, the office of the prime minister said they did not have information available regarding the purchasing of tickets.