(CMC) Dominica’s Opposition leader Lennox Linton has repeated his call for the resignation of Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit and called on President Chares Savarin to name a new person to the post.
Linton is leading a three-member delegation in Guyana, hoping to hold talks with Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders on the “situation in Dominica” for which he has blamed Skerrit and his administration.
The regional leaders are meeting for their 28th Inter-sessional summit that wraps up later on Friday.
“We are here because we believe the time has come for the CARICOM heads of governments to intervene and do what is right on behalf of the citizens of CARICOM in so far as the conduct of the Dominica government is concerned,” Linton told a news conference.
Linton accused the Skerrit government of using the controversial Citizenship by Investment Programme (CBI) to grant diplomatic status to corrupt individuals “who are involved in corrupt activates around the world.
“Our demand for the resignation of the prime minister, which is gaining currency across Dominica from people of all walks of life, is because of…number one, Dominica has now been plunged into a near crisis of confidence …and since 2004 Mr Skerrit has presided over a corrupt Citizenship by Investment Programme…”
During the news conference, Linton said he was “stoutly denying” that his party had any involvement in a supposed coup to unseat the government following the disturbances that followed a public meeting of the main opposition United Workers Party and the Dominica Freedom party (DFP) on February 7.
Skerrit had said that the leadership of the two parties were behind the plot to run over his office and “seize the seat of power” and that the fires and looting of several businesses in the capital, should also be blamed on Linton and his supporters.
“Word is emerging in the court of Dominica where young persons are being charged and they are under oath telling their stories about the reasons why they targetted certain business places, some of them for very personal reasons…and that in itself is an ongoing story,” said Linton.
Meanwhile, Skerrit, speaking on a radio programme in Dominica from Guyana, said that his fellow CARICOM leaders he had spoken to were appalled by the behaviour of the opposition party regarding the violence in the city.
“I can tell you that heads are appalled by the behaviour of the leadership of the United Workers Party,” he said, reiterating that he remains convinced that the entire matter was engineered by Linton and his followers.
