AG’s response on hold as more voices decry gun factory

Attorney General Steadroy “Cutie” Benjamin has departed the country for Guyana amidst growing public interest in the details of a recently aborted proposal to assemble firearms in Antigua & Barbuda.
When OBSERVER media contacted him for comment on Monday, Benjamin said: “I’m afraid I’m just about to leave to go on a legal accounts committee conference, so I’ll be off. I can’t speak until I get back from Guyana.”
According to Political Leader of the United Progressive Party (UPP) Harold Lovell, Prime Minister Gaston Browne “threw the attorney general under the bus” when he said that the proposal was discussed at a Cabinet meeting chaired by Benjamin in his absence.
Since the proposal was aired on the Snakepit programme on the weekend, many residents have voiced their disapproval of it. Now Bishop Charlesworth Browne has weighed in on the issue saying that the government’s duty to create employment and generate income “should not mean jobs at any costs or money at any costs”.
The clergyman made the remark during an interview with OBSERVER media yesterday, and he commended the government for throwing out the proposal when there was a public backlash over the weekend.
 
(More in today’s Daily Observer)