The media entity responsible for ensuring that the business of the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines is communicated correctly is now under scrutiny after it sent an email referring to Ralph Gonsalves as “prime minister”, exactly five months after Godwin Friday replaced him in that post.
What’s more, the acting head of the Agency for Public Information (API), Nadia Slater, issued an apology shortly after, saying that it was “a genuine error with malicious intent”.
The situation unfolded at 9 a.m., when the API issued a media invite in an unsigned email, saying, “The Prime Minister Dr. Hon. Ralph Gonsalves will host a Press Conference today April 28, 2026, at 12 noon.”
Gonsalves, who was prime minister from 2001, was voted out of office on Nov. 27, 2025, when Friday led the New Democratic Party (NDP) to a 14-1 victory over the Unity Labour Party (ULP).
At 9:29 a.m., the API sent another email, this time signed by “N. Slater”, the acting director of the API, asking that recipients disregard the earlier email.
Slater said that the invite was to a press conference hosted by “Prime Minister Dr. Hon Godwin Friday”.
“The Agency sincerely apologises for the typing error in the previous email and wishes to indicate that it was a genuine error with malicious intent (sic),” the email continued.
Then, at 9:32 a.m., Slater issued another email, asking the media to “disregard previous note in the previous email” and to find attached a media invite to the press conference by Prime Minister Friday.
“The Agency sincerely apologises for the typing error in the previous email and wishes to indicate that it was a genuine error WITHOUT malicious intent,” Slater said in the email.
Gonsalves was the only member on the ULP’s slate to win a seat in the Nov. 27 general election and is now the leader of the opposition.
