Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell has weighed in on the debate taking place among warring factions in the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the main opposition New National Party (NNP) on the issue of the Two Horses from St Lucia that were brought into the country without the necessary permit/approval and with a well-known disease.
The Prime Minister told reporters on Wednesday that he is in full support of the action taken by the Veterinary Division of the Ministry of Health to put the horses to sleep permanently after landing on the St George’s Port.
Officials of the Ministry of Agriculture have confirmed that they have submitted a report on the issue to the Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF) to look at laying criminal charges against the Importer, Royan Smith who is a known political activist with the NNP of former Education Minister Emmalin Pierre.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture Javan Williams also said that Smith had made an approach with respect to the importation of the animals from St Lucia but no permit was granted him to bring in the two horses.
PM Dickon Mitchell disclosed that Smith has since filed a lawsuit against the State seeking compensation for the loss of the animals.
The Grenadian leader told reporters: “In case anyone has any notion that we like killing animals I want to dispel that but I want to make a bigger point about the risk to not just animal health but human health when persons do not take the Animal Health legislation as a serious thing in Grenada.
I want to emphasize this: The St Lucian government through the Office of the PS indicated that no Export permit was given for the horses to leave St Lucia – so that in itself is a criminal offense in St Lucia.
The importation of the horses into Grenada was also a criminal offence yet the consignee – I have been briefed by the Office of the Attorney-General has filed a claim against the Government of Grenada purportedly for what – I don’t know.
So, I want to emphasise the kind of lawlessness that is taking place here. You are importing horses contrary to the law, you have sought to export horses from a country contrary to the law and in the interest of protecting the public you are filing a lawsuit against the government.
I want to emphasise this is not the first time that the Ministry of Lands through the Veterinary Office had to take action to protect…and sometimes extreme action.
Recently, the Cabinet was advised that in October 2025, Noel’s Farm in St James which is a Poultry farm experienced unusually high morbidity and mortality rate among its chicken poultry stock.
The preliminary suggestion – that had to be tested – but it turned out thankfully not to be true – was that there was a risk of a highly Pathogenic Avian Flu or Influenza outbreak. The Farm was shut down and the stock was lost – I didn’t see Mr Noel suing the government even though it turned out there was no influencia.
So, I’m making this point to say – we have to take seriously the risk of animal disease outbreaks or spread because it could have dire consequences for the country.
And there are times when the Team at the Ministry may have to act preemptively because waiting to verify might be too late because by the time you verify the spread might have taken place.
To emphasise and I want to make it public that I would support the Team whenever there is a risk posed to public health or animal health.
We have all kinds of protocols in place for when human beings are likely to be coming into the country with any kind of disease that is potentially contagious.
So, I am not going to standby and allow animals to be illegally imported into the country, knowing full well that the animals are diseased and we do not have the capacity to treat them here nor would it be fair on taxpayers to allow private citizens to import legally or illegally diseased animals and then to ask the State to quarantine them and to fix them for you.
So, I am going on record as indicating this because we cannot in a small island run the risk of the outbreak of infectious animal or human diseases especially when there is clear evidence that that which you are bringing into the country is diseased.
This is something that we will continue to be vigilant about – Grenada is a very open society both in terms of its shoreline and its tourism and stay-over arrivals and we cannot risk any sort of disease outbreak in Grenada in circumstances where there is a clear risk of that happening.