Message quoting PM Browne on Global Bank CEO is ripped down by DCA with zero notice to owner

It appears that the political authorities do not want to see Prime
Minister Gaston Browne quoted about the Global Bank of
Commerce’s chief executive officer, Brian Stuart-Young, as a
reference to both of them were stripped from a billboard today.

The billboard had carried the image of the bank official, with the
words: “Gaston Browne has said that ‘Brian Stuart-Young is not a
crook, he is a decent man.’

It continues by asking why Stuart-Young will not pay the millions of
US dollars that Jack Stroll alleges he owes him.

Mere hours after it appeared, the Development Control Authority
(DCA) – which falls within the ministry of Browne’s wife, Maria

Browne – executed a zero-notice removal order, stripping the
message away.

It was replaced by an official notice from the agency, signed by Town
and Country Planner Frederick Southwell, which claims the
billboard was erected without permission from the DCA and
“contains defamatory information.”

Ironically, in a legal matter that continued today in the High Court,
Stuart-Young was ordered to answer questions and provide
documentation to Stroll’s lawyers since a judgment against both
GBC and Stuart-Young had not been honoured by either.

Accordingly, observers are asking where the defamation lies when it
is common knowledge – and a fact – that Stroll is, indeed, owed
millions in United States currency.

Further, they point out that there was no violation of the DCA’s
authority by the “erection” of a billboard, since the structure was
erected at least two years ago, is still standing, and continues to bear
its original image.

Rather, the observers say, this is a blatant abuse of power by the
political authorities, using the DCA, and an infringement on freedom
of expression.

Photos of the message, meanwhile, have gone viral.