We All Listen To Juicy Barbados Gossip – And Here’s Some For You…

Did You Hear, Child?

You know how it is… sometimes you’re waiting around for coconut water (hi george!) and you hear a bit o this and a bit o that. Maybe it is true, maybe it is part true, an maybe it is nothing but a cane cutting tale.

And maybe somebody is telling the story because they have an agenda. Best think on that before you get too excited about what you hear!

But we all love the latest gossip doan matta!

Here are two gossips we received today. Make of them what you will – just you remember that half the reason you come to the side of the road in front of the new office building is because of the gossip. Good coconut water you can find anywhere… but for some fine cane stories you come ta here.

Now if you will excuse me as I get back to chopping and filling. Did you bring your own jug today? Good…

Gossip #1: Customs Officers Being Bad Boys At The Airport

Dear BFP: I’ve heard that the new airport building is actually designed to facilitate intransit passengers but the Immigration and Customs departments (having signed off on the plans in the planning phase then refused to allow the airport to use the facilities for intransit. So forcing passengers to enter Barbados then walk around to check back in.

Also I’ve heard that customs officers regularly park in the spaces for tour buses, which then get ticketed for parking in the road. (because the spaces are taken up by the customs officers)

I’ve also heard that Customs are a law unto themselves at the airport refusing to go through the scanners or any other type of security screening.

Gossip #2: Cabinet Split Over Corrupt Activities

Dear BFP: I heard that Prime Minister David Thompson is increasingly becoming cut off from his ‘elected’ Cabinet Ministers and cowering to Hartley Henry ‘appointed’ and ‘Super’ Ministers. Deals a flowin thru HH and his Super Ministers.

Elected Ministers are getting vexx and more vexx as they become more powerless by the day to the Henry chosen Super Ministers. Elected MP John Boyce, Minister of Transport, Works, and International Transport is emerging as the leader. Health Minister David Estwick his most vocal supporter.

Seven elected Ministers met last week at Boyce home and vented their frustrations. Surprise attendee at the meeting was William Layne. It is rare for public servants to be openly political.

Loud complaints were heard that Ministerial decisions being ignored and overuled. Lone lady minister Esther Byer Suckoo was heard to complain that if she had known it would be like this, she wouldn’t have accepted.

Plans were made to block Henry initiated contracts. The oil sector is one of his main targets and talk was not good about his favoured Texan. Talk was sums paid to him sounded small but the cost to the country could be big.

John Boyce is being seen as long term alternative to David Thompson who is even being sinecured in his own Cabinet. He is not seen as either decisive or powerful. Decisions are coming from the Henry appointed Super Ministers and at Boyce house it was stated that Thompson is fast becoming a nonentity in managing the Government affairs.

“David is distracted by pleasures of the flesh and leaving the running of government to Henry”, one Minister said at the meeting. Estwick said Thompson is too sly and not to be trusted. Senior Civil Servants are also beginning to more openly criticize the administration because their advice is not heeded. Rules are being severely bent daily on orders of the Super Ministers and bank accounts are startin to be filled.

Boyce is planning a press conference to reveal how and why the laws of the land are being subverted and broken. That Hartley Henry is involved in arrangements is totally true but lets also wait and hear what the elected PM has to say about the latest development before rushing to judgment.

Another Stunning Secret Tape Recording In The Barbados Kingsland Estates Fraud Case! Richard Cox, Sir Henry Forde, Clyde Turney… OH MY!!!!!!

It Is Difficult To Claim “That Didn’t Happen, Your Honour” When A Tape-Recording Is Played!

Keltruth Blog has revealed the existence of yet another secret tape recording made in the Kingsland Estate land fraud case.

Ten years ago Sir Henry Forde recommended that a secret tape recording be made of an “off the record” meeting between his clients – two of the Knox family – and Clyde Turney’s representatives for an “undisclosed client” who desperately wanted to get their hands on prime Barbados land owned by Kingsland Estates.

“And who should show up at the meeting but Prime Minister Owen Arthur’s bag man: Richard Cox!!!!”

This is the same Richard Cox who, with David Shorey and Prime Minister Owen Arthur, was involved in the Holders land scandal that was the winner of our 2006 Barbados Piggies At The Trough Award. (See BFP’s WINNER ANNOUNCED: Barbados Piggies At The Trough Award 2006)

Environmentally Sensitive Land Impossible To Rezone For Development – Until The Right People Stand To Make Some Money…

Owen Arthur, Richard Cox, David Shorey and other big-ups of the past BLP administration were professionals at squeezing the life out of farmers and other land-holders. The BLP government would deny permissions to develop large tracts of land for years until the owners gave up and accepted the fact that they would never be able to profit from their land. Then Cox and Shorey would be sent in to make a low-ball offer for “an undisclosed client”.

The land would then be flipped – sometimes within hours – to various companies and then MAGICALLY… the new owner was able to immediately obtain the land development approvals that had been withheld by government for a decade! Overnight, land that was barely able to support a crop became worth millions.

In this way Cox, Shorey, Arthur and a host of other government officials and big-ups were able to use other citizens’ lands as their own private bank accounts.

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Who Else Has Been Secretly Recorded Over The Last 10 Years?

This is (I think) the third or fourth secret tape recording that has surfaced or been mentioned on Keltruth Blog. The last one was a tape-recording of Peter Simmons – the brother of Chief Justice SIR David Simmons – threatening that University of the West Indies professor John Knox would be fired from his teaching job if he continued to testify in the land fraud case involving the Chief Justice… and fired he was! (see BFP’s Justice In Barbados – Shut Up Or Else! Court Witness Fired From University Of West Indies Professorship. Brother Of Chief Justice Simmons Delivered The Threat)

In the Kingsland Estates land fraud case featured at Keltruth Blog, the prize is over a billion US$ dollars of prime Barbados land. Big stakes – with ordinary citizens trying to avoid being raped by a cabal of conspirators who regularly ate farmers for breakfast.

It looks to us like the little people knew that they didn’t stand a chance in a rigged Barbados judicial system. Heck – when you’re up against a group that includes the Prime Minister and his Attorney General, and then the AG becomes the Chief Justice… well, ordinary folks don’t stand much of a chance.

Except if you have secret tape-recordings to show the truth.

Friends, this latest secret tape-recording revealed on Keltruth Blog was made over ten years ago according to what we read. The one that shows Peter Simmons making threats was made (I think) last year. How many other secret tape-recordings were made by the little people over the last ten or so years? Who attended what meetings? Whose voices will the court hear and what did they say?

The court documents being published each week on Keltruth Blog may turn out to be the Barbados news story of the decade if the Bajan media ever decides to dig a little deeper.

Further Reading

Keltruth Blog – Kingsland, Turney and Cox: Who is this concealed purchaser?