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Arthur challenges Thompson to bring evidence of corruption.

PUT UP, or shut up!

That was the challenge thrown out to leader of the Democratic Labour Party, David Thompson, by Prime Minister Owen Arthur during the Barbados Labour Party’s mass political meeting at Haynesville, St. James Sunday night.

Saying he was tired of hearing Thompson pandering to the tendency of people to believe that politicians are by nature corrupt, Arthur invited Thompson to “bring forth” to the public any evidence of corruption by any BLP parliamentarian or minister.

“I say this David Thompson, put up or shut up!” Arthur said. “Bring forth the evidence of BLP corruption. Give the people, not smears or rumours, but evidence of corruption if you want a government to be changed on the basis of corruption. All you are doing is pandering and posturing to what is innate in the human condition…”

Advising Thompson to look within the DLP if he wants to see evidence of corruption, the candidate for St. Peter added:

“All this talk about morality and family values is intended to … create this case for change. There is a natural willingness on the part of people to believe that we politicians are corrupt. People naturally feel so because you have power and are allocated large sums of money, and if you tell them that the only house I have is the one in West Terrace (they will not believe it), but it is true.

“I don’t have any companies … I have a few shares in a bank I bought before I became prime minister. I have a few savings… I live a simple life and I encourage my ministers to live a simple life. Liz Thompson works hard and what she has, she has earned by the strength of her efforts. She has not stolen a penny from a man.

“I hold my ministers and my MPs’ feet to the fire. They know where I stand: I don’t cut deals, [they] don’t cut deals.

“But Thompson knows there is a predisposing environment that naturally feels that politicians are corrupt, and as a minister of finance, every time a Government department has mashed the crease, not ministers, I have sent in special auditors to tell me the facts, to tell me what is wrong, to tell me what is required. Thirteen times I have done it.

“At the start of this term the first powers we created were in a new Public Accounts Committee Act, to enable the committee to function independent of government and to vest powers in David Thompson as the chairman to investigate any government department or company owned by the government. After a full term, armed with those enormous powers, Thompson cannot bring forward one shred of evidence of corruption on the part of any member of my administration…”

On the other hand, Arthur suggested that Thompson look within his party for the member who left a bank job under questionable circumstances. He also questioned the fitness of the DLP’s St. James South candidate Donville Inniss to be a candidate for a seat in the House of Assembly after it was disclosed that he owned a company with connections to Internet pornography services.

“I have been a resident of this constituency before many of you. I lived here 38 years ago and these are wonderful people in this constituency who deserve to be represented only by people of the highest caliber. They have that in Liz Thompson. They have that in Kerrie Symmonds.

“But it is worse than scraping the bottom of a dirty gutter for David Thompson and the DLP to rake up a Donville Innniss and seek to bring him to this constituency as a person who they want to represent this constituency as a person capable of the job.

“If anybody ever came to the BLP with a record such as Donville Inniss’ … I would call the police … to investigate… I would not be looking to put him on a platform …

“But the notion in this day and age of taking someone who they know has made his fortune (this way) before a constituency in which there are young people like my daughter, asking people to support him, is the greatest travesty I have ever come across,” Arthur added.