ROSEAU – Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit Friday dismissed as “nonsense” suggestions that food supplies were being used for partisan politics and urged those behind these allegations to cease saying it was hurting not only the image of the Dominica, but the citizens who are now trying to rebuild the island following the passage of Hurricane Maria last week.
“This talk about food supplies and partisanship with food supplies and politicians are the ones dealing with the delivery of food supplies. This is total nonsense,” an angry Skerrit told the daily news briefing.
“As the prime minister of this country, I sleep on the floor. As the prime minister of this country I bathe this morning with a bucket of water. I don’t eat corned beef, I don’t eat sardines, so where the hell am I going to put sardines or stack up sardines at my home or somewhere else.
“The supplies are coming in, there are structures, there are limitations in terms of places to store those food supplies in communities because every single home got damaged in the country and people who are seeking to undermine the government’s efforts of bringing relief, of bringing aid bringing restoration of services to our country, we need to stop it,” Skerrit said.
He told reporters if persons have complaints “we will address those administrative issues, we will put better structures in place to facilitate the more efficient delivery of supplies but we can’t be going out there on the social media, on the radio and elsewhere and making this unfounded, baseless, malicious allegations.
“Don’t think it is going to hurt me . . . and this thing must stop because it is really pissing me off that people are out there talking a bunch of nonsense about food supplies and political interference . . . all of which are geared to undermine our efforts.
“This damn country has been destroyed. It has been devastated, schools are destroyed and people out there talking a bunch of nonsense about food supplies and political interference. My mandate is to ensure that this country has adequate supplies to get to every single home and every single individual in this country, I don’t care, it has to go to everybody,” a visibly angry Skerrit told reporters.
He said “this idea of do this, or don’t do this is totally nonsense.
“Where there are concerns we will take note of these concerts, where there are issues we will take note of these issues and seek to address them. But we have to stop this nonsense about political interference and so forth,” Skerrit said, adding that he has not been to the Roseau Port where the supplies are received.
He said he intends to go there on Friday to see what administrative structures are in place “and where we need to strengthen”.
He said he had instructed senior government officials “to go in there, look at the structures and if there are issues to be dealt with administratively let us address them . . . but people have to stop this talk about food supplies, posting these things on social media, sending things to regional and international agencies , all geared to undermine this thing”.
“This is really pissing me off and I am very upset at what some people are doing in this country. We have to stop it. There are people out there bursting their [butts] out there seeking to bring a better way of life for people and there are people just sitting down there before a computer and just posting things.
“They are not even in the country and they are just posting things and they have not even been able to verify this information,” Skerrit said, noting that the regional and international agencies are responsible for delivering the supplies.
“We have not commandeered any supplies from any regional or international agency. They came here, they have their boats, their helicopters, they have their means to deploy and deliver those supplies. We really have to stop this foolishness because the only people who will be affected by this are the people of Dominica and the most vulnerable in our country”.
Earlier, Skerrit also urged motorists to stay off the roads as the clean-up crews continue to clear the road networks, saying their presence were severely hampering the operations. (CMC)
