MIAMI (CARIBUPDATE NEWS- May 20, 2021): GRENADA’S MIAMI-BASED AMBASSADOR AT LARGE abruptly resigned Thursday, saying he can no longer serve the government of Grenada in good conscience.
In a damning resignation letter, Warren Newfield even suggested that the current Keith Mitchell administration may no longer have the interest of Grenada at heart.
Newfield, who has been in the post for more than six years, also had under his portfolio getting investments for Grenada.
In his resignation letter Newfield wrote: “Unfortunately, conditions in Grenada have changed drastically in the past few years. The country’s leadership, previously having the country’s best interests at heart, was welcoming to foreign investment and economic development, but has been transformed into an anti-business regime.”
Newfield appealed to the government to restore “reason and the rule of law to the government.”
The businessman and ambassador noted that Grenada ranked the fourth worst place to do business in the Americas according to a recent World Bank assessment.
Referring to the government as a regime, Newfield said it now habitually disregarded investors’ rights, and routinely breaches agreements.
Newfield, who has been an unpaid ambassador, is also investing in a multi-million-dollar hotel property in Grenada.
His resignation, some observers say, is the latest symptom of a growing crisis of governance in Grenada, with allies and investors alike, complaining privately of a system of decision making that has lost its moorings.
One current investor called the decision-making erratic, reactionary and unpredictable – and sometimes subjected to the current mood of the Prime Minister and one of his main advisors.
Grenada, one source says is now being effectively run by what he called a committee of two.
There are increasing reports of agencies not being allowed to function independently, and decisions taken routinely, being overturned.
While two high-profile resignations in recent months from the Citizenship By Investment program have been put down publicly as personal decisions, some say there is more to it.
Repeated calls to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Oliver Joseph for comment on the resignation of Newfield went answered at the time of writing.
“It is with great sorrow but with absolute conviction of no other options,” Newfield wrote about his decision to quit.
“We are in an extremely funny place,” one private sector officially who recently met directly with the Prime Minister on several issues recently, told CARIBUPDATE NEWS