Relocate the Governor-General to Mount Royal

Originally published in NOW Grenada, The Grenadian Voice and The New Today on 13. March 2025.

With the recent controversy surrounding the construction of an official residence for the Governor of the ECCB (Eastern Caribbean Central Bank) in St Kitts to the tune of EC$22 million, the Grenada Monarchist League finds it prudent to raise the issue of the peculiar residential arrangements of the Governor-General and the Prime Minister presently in place here in Grenada.

According to the recently presented 2025 budget, in the next year, the Grenadian taxpayer will spend $274,000 renting a residence for the Governor-General and $351,000 renting a residence for the Prime Minister. That totals over $625,000 in rental costs over the next year. This is an extraordinary situation unparalleled in the Caribbean and is clearly undesirable.

While renting a residence for the Governor-General has been a necessity since the destruction of Government House by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, this has not been so for the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister’s official residence, Mount Royal, was restored after Ivan and was occupied by our Prime Ministers until 2022. Today, Mount Royal stands empty while the Prime Minister resides in a rented home.

While there may be numerous justifiable reasons why the Prime Minister has chosen not to reside at Mount Royal, letting it stand empty is a tremendous waste. The Grenadian public would save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year if Mount Royal were instead transformed into the new residence of the Governor-General until Government House is hopefully someday restored.

The present residence of the Governor-General in Point Salines is, by a significant margin, the smallest and most cramped residence of any head of state or their representative in the Caribbean. Indeed, it is one of the smallest in the entire world and wholly inadequate. The residences of the Governors-General of St Lucia or St Vincent and the Grenadines, for instance, are over 3 times larger. President’s House in Trinidad is over 4 times as large. Housing the Governor-General at Mount Royal, which is 50% larger than the current residence at Point Salines, would be a significant improvement.

It would allow the Governor-General’s office to operate far more efficiently as a state institution, hosting foreign dignitaries and conducting state events such as investitures to a far greater degree. We need only look at the cramped conditions in the reception hall during the conferral of Sir Kirani James’ honorary doctorate from UWI earlier this year to see that the Point Salines residence is not fit for purpose.

Moving the Governor-General to Mount Royal would not only give the office more suitable space and conditions, but would also make the Governor-General far more accessible to the public. Mount Royal is located directly next to the New Houses of Parliament and is thus located near the heart of St George’s. By contrast, the Point Salines residence is near the very southernmost point of the island, with it taking at least 20 minutes by car to get there from the capital. That time increases significantly if there is traffic.

The arguments in favour of moving the Governor-General out of the current rented residence in Point Salines and into the currently vacant Mount Royal are, in short, numerous. It would save the taxpayers nearly $300,000 a year in rental costs, provide the Governor-General with more spacious and suitable accommodations to carry out her functions, and make her office far more centrally located and accessible to our people. While Mount Royal may require some rehabilitation and changes to accommodate the Governor-General’s office, such expenses would quickly be reimbursed by the significant savings in rental costs.

There is absolutely no reason for Mount Royal to stand empty. If the Prime Minister is not to use the residence, it should be used to house the Governor-General. In a small country such as ours, with limited financial resources and high levels of public debt, simple and clear cost-cutting initiatives such as this should be undertaken as quickly as possible. This should certainly be done against the backdrop of the current budget, which is the largest in the history of our country.