Senaotr Parker & Attorney Dalso Blast UWI Law Classes at ABLP Headquarters as "Totally Corrupted" Arrangement

Opposition Senator Malaka Parker and attorney-at-law Kelton Dalso have launched a blistering attack on the arrangement under which University of the West Indies (UWI) Five Islands law students are to be housed at the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party's (ABLP) headquarters, demanding full disclosure of the procurement process and rental terms.

Appearing on Observer Radio's Voice of the People with host Adrian Williams, the pair insisted their objections were not to the law programme itself — which both welcomed — but to placing a publicly funded regional university inside the governing party's headquarters.

"This idea that we can just rent a space — I don't care if they were renting a desk inside of the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party's headquarters — and it is okay, is wrong," Senator Parker declared. "It is a totally corrupted thought... there is nobody else anywhere in the world that holds that view except the cronies inside of the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party."

She framed the issue as part of a wider pattern: "The Labour Party has shown us, whilst they're in government, none of our organisations, none of our institutions are safe." The fledgling campus, she argued, is "just now finding its legs... it is most vulnerable at this stage, and it is important that this organisation be left to stand on its own merit."

Dalso said the location — not the programme — was the crux. "Everybody welcomes a law faculty at the University of the West Indies Five Islands Campus... But any right-thinking person would know that it offends fairness, the spirit of true independence of any learning institution. It offends it, and I'm going to speak against it forever, because nobody should be wearing no red robe in court."

Questions of Process and Price

It was reported on August 29 that the ABLP's headquarters was being considered as a temporary venue, with the Prime Minister stating that approximately 65 students had enrolled, that the building might be rented for a "nominal fee," and that the arrangement could save government nearly US$1 million. He acknowledged the optics, calling the venue a possible "last resort."

Senator Parker seized on that framing. "The Prime Minister seems to be driving this process. If he is saying that labour party's headquarters is a last resort, he is speaking very preemptively and with authority, as though he is the University of the West Indies. That is already a problem... What is it that you needed in buildings that was so unique that only the People's Place could provide it?"

"You should be jumping over, doing cartwheels to show us: listen, we looked at this place, it couldn't work; this place, it couldn't work," she added. "None of that has happened."

Dalso questioned who made the decision at all. "Did the board of UWI throughout the Caribbean meet and come to that decision? We want to know, and Antigua deserves to know also... and we ought to know also the amount that they're paying." He noted the public has not seen any contract, and cited a rumoured monthly rent of $26,000.

Senator Parker warned any payment would cross a legal line. "If the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party is in fact getting paid, that is not only egregious to me, it is criminal. And if the remuneration is $30,000, as we've heard as a rumour, that must be stopped... How can you justify $30,000 to host 65 students? That's two classrooms."

Even a free offer should be rejected, she said: "Even if the building were empty, no student should be made to go into a political party's headquarters, where they may feel uncomfortable, to receive an education."

"Dismantling All of the Guardrails"

Senator Parker tied the UWI controversy to the suspension of the Tenders Board and the handling of CIP funds. "What you see is a pattern of dismantling all of the guardrails... It is a process of bringing a thick black blanket over a process that should be transparent," she said. "The CIP money is drying up. We still don't have a prison. We have now lost, basically, visa access to the US... And what do we have to show?"

She also accused statutory bodies of propping up party-aligned Point FM through advertising: "That is my money, that is my children's money... That's going to funnel to pay the Antigua Labour Party."

Closing, Senator Parker compared the electorate's loyalty to government to an abusive relationship: "Abuse is never okay... What you are accepting as governance is actually bad governance — and it is not hard to do better."

Dalso warned the students themselves risk being compromised: "The same 65 law students up there in People's Place — you think they're going to want to speak ill about the Labour Party? They would be uneasy to do so."

As of airtime, no final rental figure or contract had been made public, and UWI had issued no statement — a silence Senator Parker called "highly disrespectful" to the public.