Tempers flare at ministry

by BARRY ALLEYNE AND LEIGH-ANN WORRELL

THE SUMMER CAMP CONTROVERSY between the Ministry of Family, Youth and Sport and the Israel Lovell Foundation's Camp Kuumba has flared into a police matter.

Police confirmed yesterday they are investigating complaints of alleged misconduct against former Cabinet minister Trevor Prescod at the Elsie Payne Complex at Constitution Road, St Michael, last Monday.

Prescod, head of the Foundation and administrators of Camp Kuumba reportedly went to the complex which houses the Ministry of Family, Youth and Sports to register their concern about the very late arrival of food for their campers.

On Wednesday Camp Kuumba was pulled from the list of national camps supported by the Ministry of Family, Youth and Sports.

Minister of Family, Youth and Sports, Esther Byer Suckoo, in defending the decision to dump Camp Kuumba, said she was quite disturbed about the alleged behaviour of camp representatives at the ministry's headquarters.

"My staff was threatened. They accosted my staff, and the language from all the reports I've received, was abusive [and] the behaviour was aggressive," she said at a clear-the-air press conference called at Government Headquarters yesterday.

According to her reports, the administration of the Israel Lovell Foundation came to the ministry Monday afternoon and caused a disturbance due to the fact that their camp did not receive any lunch.

Also yesterday, an irate Prescod had his say about the camp being dumped by the ministry.

"I have been a minister of Government, and you know I have also been a consultant to Mr (Hamilton) Lashley, and we can extrapolate a lot from that but the major one that will come out is obviously the intention is to jettison not only me, but all those affiliated with the Israel Lovell Foundation," Prescod claimed during a radio interview with Starcom Network.

"It is very clear to me that all persons, as soon as there a suspicion that somebody is affiliated to the Barbados Labour Party, then out goes you."

Suckoo said that she could not allow individuals who behave in an "abusive" manner to be a part of an initiative that she is in charge of, regardless of their political affiliation. She also noted that no camps as part of the ministry's national plan would be discriminated against because of political affiliation.

Chris Sinckler, Minister of Social Care and Constituency Empowerment, who also attended yesterday's press conference, declared that the actions of the administration at the Israel Lovell Foundation were aimed at destroying the camp programme.

"Don't get tied up with any of this. This is clearly an attempt to destroy the camps programme by certain operatives and we have set a course to sanitise it from politics," he said.