Arthur says he refused campaign financing offer

Former Prime Minister Owen Arthur has shed some light on a number of issues raised by Prime Minister Freundel Stuart on Sunday night during a political meeting of the ruling Democratic Labour Party (DLP).

Speaking in a press conference at the offices of Barbados Today, Manor Lodge, St. Michael yesterday morning, the former Prime Minister revealed that there were attempts to get him to secure campaign financing in the last general election from any country in this hemisphere. He recalled a meeting arranged by another member of his party, where he met with a political operative and a Prime Minister of another Caribbean country, to encourage him to journey to Venezuela to seek financing for the Barbados Labour Party’s election campaign.

According to Arthur, one condition of that financing was that he would change the position he held as Prime Minister of Barbados on Petrocaribe.

“You would recall that when we were in Government, Barbados was one of the countries that refused to participate in Petrocaribe and we did so on the grounds that I did not think it was appropriate to have to get future generations of Barbadians to pay for the gasoline that this present generation consumes. Petrocaribe lent you money to buy gas and I said no to it,” he said.

Arthur added, “Mr. Stuart is in a position to speak to it because I called in the Venezuelan ambassador and briefed him, so there is a record… Obviously I refused to go, because there was no circumstances under which I was going to agree to sell the Barbados foreign policy for a campaign contribution.”

Arthur, who was leader of the Barbados Labour Party from 1993 to 2010 and again took over the reins of power before the 2013 election, said that the financing “could have run into the millions”, but on principle he did not accept it.