by Kevon Browne
St. Kitts and Nevis (WINN)—Premier of Nevis, Hon. Mark Brantley, has firmly rejected claims of political victimisation regarding the sudden dismissal of Mario Phillip, a newly launched Nevis Reformation Party (NRP) candidate.
Phillip, who had served as a Gender Officer with the Department of Gender Affairs for over five years, was summarily terminated from his public service role shortly after announcing his candidacy for Constituency 11.
During his August 2026 press conference, Premier Brantley responded directly to the brewing political controversy.
Premier Brantley stated that he does not “take kindly to any suggestion” that his administration targets or fires individuals because of their political affiliations.
Rather than a political move, Premier Brantley attributed Phillip’s termination strictly to documented job performance issues and gross misconduct.
The Premier highlighted an internal July report tracking February to July, which allegedly recorded eight unexcused absences, ten sick days, fourteen late arrivals, and eleven unauthorised office departures.
Brantley revealed that Phillip allegedly used official Department of Gender Affairs letterhead and logos without authorisation to solicit private funds, including securing a donation of approximately $4,700 from a corporate entity.
“We are aware that we have difficulties in the public service but based on the six-month report that I alluded to and to show the number of absences and sick days and unexcused delays and late arrivals etc, you realise that throughout what we did was to try to ameliorate. That’s why we had all these interventions. That is the case with every public servant because our posture is to give people an opportunity to fix what the problem is.
“Not to simply discard people but to fix what the problem is and I dare say Miss Hewlett that had those been the only problems we probably would have continued to try but when this issue came and I remind you that this issue we learned about it by happenstance it was a conversation that somebody was having with the donors of this four thousand seven hundred dollars that we discovered that this money had been donated to this programme. We said about we don’t know anything about that.
“That is when the fact that there was a private entity with the same name that that came to the fore that that entity had bank accounts that that came we did not know a thing. There was no based on the information provided by the ministry no authorisation no permission nothing of the nature so it wasn’t just an issue of the poor performance which is clearly to the root of your question an important issue it was if you will there was this further incident that then went to the very trust that the ministry could have and therein lies the difficulty that is why I’m calling on all of our public servants really to conduct themselves responsibly and avoid engaging in activity that can lead to this.”
Brantley encouraged Phillip to make his termination letter public.
“If it is that this candidate who has now declared wishes to continue to pretend that this was somehow political victimisation then I call on him to publish his letter of termination and let the public see and let the individual public make a determination as to whether or not the findings based on what is documented were such as to rise to a level that this individual not only in government but in any organisation would be terminated. That really is the debate that I would like to invite and I want our people to move away from this notion about people being terminated for their politics.
“Like I said we have a plenty and happy activists in government plenty of them we have never seen it fit or necessary to terminate anybody. Our record is there and I believe anybody could assess that record a lot of the allegations against my government about victimisation we say where is it show us because there have been other instances where people have been told don’t come back to the office we haven’t suspended anybody we haven’t terminated anybody there’s nobody who’s at home sitting down because of their politics we have simply not done that and while some have seen it as a weakness on my part I actually pride myself that there’s nobody out there who claim that we have victimised them in any way shape or form the only thing that I’ll ask of our public servants please come to work and do your job that’s it and it’s no different here in this situation.”
The Premier indicated that he had no information on whether any recourse other than the termination would come to fruition.
“I can’t say what will happen at this point I think that that will have to be a decision that is made by the ministry and the department as to whether having terminated this worker there is a need for anything further. I am advised that the at least one donor that we are aware of has asked for their money back that much I’m advised I can’t beyond that I can’t go any further.”
While the NRP and opposition figures pointed to the timeline as evidence of an attack on public servants who oppose the sitting government, Mario Phillip himself took a measured approach in his public statement.
He voiced broader systemic concerns regarding employment security in the public sector but specifically urged his supporters not to retaliate with anger or personal attacks against the decision-makers.
