The Tribune

By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

DEMOCRATIC National Alliance Leader Branville McCartney has suggested that Prime Minister Perry Christie has not reprimanded embattled Agriculture Minister V Alfred Gray for alleged judicial interference because of the actions it is claimed that Mr Christie took last year to help stop the court ordered repossession of government VAT coordinator Ishmael Lightbourne’s West Bay Street home.

Mr McCartney argued that the Lightbourne issue made it “hard” for the prime minister to “properly handle the Gray matter”.

“Last year a judge ... ordered the home to be taken away before (Mr) Christie got involved” and, it is claimed, “hindered the process,” the former Bamboo Town MP told The Tribune on Wednesday.

In early 2014, it was revealed that Mr Lightbourne, who had been promoting the need for value added tax implementation, owed more than $100,000 in real property taxes, which he had not paid for more than 20 years.

Last March, after mounting criticism, Mr Christie told the House of Assembly that he had called CIBC FirstCaribbean, Mr Lightbourne’s bank, and asked what he could do to save the home from foreclosure.

The bank had already secured a court order to repossess the home.

Despite criticism that this was improper, Mr Christie declared last year that no one would ever stop him from doing what he deemed as the right thing.

“I have for 40 years been making interventions with bank managers and leaders. Some of whom are headquartered in Toronto. We have a wonderful relationship. It has never been adversarial or coercive,” insisted Mr Christie.

“Mr Lightbourne and I have no social relationship, none. I have not spoken to Mr Lightbourne since I made the intervention. He is somebody who I have learned to respect as a Christian person in this country, an educated person who has made a big mistake in his life. All of us do.”

The prime minister in subsequent contributions to the House of Assembly said his only regret in the matter was “significantly” underpaying Mr Lightbourne for his services.

Mr McCartney insisted that the prime minister, through those actions, “laid the foundation” for what Mr Gray has been accused of doing.

Mr McCartney added that in his opinion both men “have crossed the line.”

Last year, Mr Gray saluted Mr Christie for intervening with the local bank in an effort to save Mr Lightbourne’s home.

Mr Gray, responding to criticism of Mr Christie in the House of Assembly, said: “If the prime minister saves one mortgage owner from losing his house, that ought to be praised and not to be condemned.”

“If we as MPs are be honest with ourselves,” said Mr Gray, “we know that constituents come for help and sometimes we do offer whatever assistance we could.”

A police investigation is continuing into allegations that the MICAL MP used his position to have a young man, who had been convicted and sentenced to a three-month prison term freed. Mr Gray has denied this. Jacqueline Charlton, the mother of the accused teen, Jaquan Charlton, has admitted that she called Mr Gray, her area representative for help.

Mr Gray has denied the allegations and said that he will be vindicated after the probe has been completed.