Castries, St. Lucia: Prime Minister, Dr. Kenny Anthony, says he is not convinced that Taiwan is willing to co-operate and provide full disclosure of the use of the funds it provided to the former Stephenson King administration here, according to a report in the Antigua Observer.
Prime Minister Anthony said that he was not pleased with the response to his government’s formal request for “frank and full disclosure” of monies made available to the former administration, during weekend talks with Taiwan’s visiting Foreign Minister, Timothy Yang and is convinced that there were protocol and procedure breeches in Ambassador Tom Chou’s tenure in St. Lucia.
Anthony said that for the past four years, Taiwan had been engaged in the unusual practice of giving every parliamentarian one million EC dollars (US$37,037) to spend in their respective constituencies, as part of a programme that was totally unregulated.
The Antigua Observer report said that last week, Foreign Minister Alva Baptiste stated that Castries could within the next few weeks make a definite decision as to whether it wants to maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan. “We have articulated our concerns to the Taiwanese Foreign Minister about the (behaviour) of his Ambassador during the tenure of the UWP (United Workers Party) administration, and indicated in no uncertain terms that Mr. Chou was too deeply involved in the country’s political affairs”.
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