Prime Minister of Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit

A visibly irate Prime Minister of Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit said he was “pissed off” by some people on the island who were spreading rumours that there was political interference in the distribution of Hurricane relief supplies.

“This talk about food supplies and partisanship with food supplies and politicians are the ones dealing with the delivery of supplies, this is total nonsense,” Skerrit said angrily during his daily live press briefing on Friday.

“As the PM of this country, I sleep on the floor. As the Prime Minister of this country, I bathed this morning from a bucket of water. I don’t eat corned beef, I don’t eat sardines. So where the hell am I going to put or stack up corned beef in my home or anywhere else!” he shouted.

Skerrit said he has not been to the Port since the passage of Hurricane Maria. He said only the Minister of Public Works has been to the Port to check on operations, as his portfolio mandates.

He made it clear that regional aid agencies are the ones responsible for delivering supplies, not politicians.

He said he had no time for politics.

“Do you want to wake up one morning and have no Government in this country? I am really pissed off with some elements of this country who are seeking to undermine the future of our people when 100 percent of our agriculture has gone away and all the farmers were relying on agriculture to survive. These are the things we should be preoccupying ourselves with. The private sector entities and hotels have been damaged. Think about the hundreds of jobs we’ve lost as a result of Hurricane Maria and how our lives have been turned upside down for the worst,” Skerrit said.

“We can’t be going out there on the radio and elsewhere and making these unfounded, baseless, malicious allegations. Those things are not going to hurt me. This thing must stop because it is really pissing me off that there are people out there are talking a bunch of nonsense about food supplies and political interference in the delivery of food supplies,” he said

He went on: “All of these attempts are geared to undermine our efforts. This damn country has been destroyed. It’s 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 this country has adequate supplies to get to every single home and every single individual in this country, it has to go to everybody.”

“I am very upset about what some people are doing in this country. We have to stop it. There are people busting their asses out there seeking to bring a better way of life for our people. And there are people who are sitting on a console or behind a computer just posting things. They are not even in the country but posting things. People are sending messages to them. They have not been able to verify the information.”

“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; the people whose homes are not insured, the people who do not know where they sleeping tonight; the people who do not know when Monday comes if they will have a job; who do not know how they will pay their mortgages.”

Skerrit is expected to address Dominica.