Bankrupt businesses endangering lives, staying open for pride
Bankrupt businesses in the territory have been endangering lives as they desperately try to remain open just to save face, Social Development Minister Vincent Wheatley said recently.
Wheatley decried the lack of bankruptcy protection laws for businesses in the BVI and said legislation should be made to allow businesses to be able to fail and then restart if needed.
“Businesses in the [United] States, they have business protection laws. They protect the business owner from lawsuits and this and that. They close down,” Wheatley said.
The minister insisted that some businesses remain open in the face of strong adversity only out of a sense of false pride.
These businesses often refuse to admit that they are actually bankrupt, leaving their employees’ lives in danger in the process when their salary deductions are not handed over to social security or insurance companies as required by law.
“There are businesses here who are running who can’t support themselves. That’s why they end up not paying NHI, Social Security, or anything,” Wheatley said. “It’s not they don’t want to do it, the businesses are not profitable. They’re not making the money they need to sustain themselves. But they can’t go out of business.”
Wheatley said that lawmakers need to implement laws that allow business owners to close down and move on from bad chapters and then start afresh.
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In other jurisdictions, if employee deductions are not timely remitted and taxes paid, the government will go after you and shut you down. The BVI government doesn’t do that, so employees and taxpayers lose.
No need to cry about bankrupt businesses staying open: demand the money they owe and shut them down if they don’t pay.
Before these fools put programs together to help local businesses survive they telling them to close. If they close you know how many people will be out of jobs? That money you all wasted on family and friends could have gone into low interest rate loans to help small businesses.
Hear who talking.Mr. you got some nerves mi boi
You need to crack down on any business which isn’t paying NHI, SS, taxes, etc., not protect them. The owners must not be allowed to weasel-out of their responsibilities like businesses in the US have gotten away with thanks to the elected officials they own by way of generous donations!
If you start protecting shady business owners, instead of throwing the full weight of the law at them, it will indicate to us that you have succumbed to the lure of business donations and are no longer to be trusted with our money. The payments these business owners aren’t paying belong to us, the citizens of the VI, not to you who is simply a manager we chose to manage our money.
Grow a pair and start taking your responsibilities seriously, and think before you spout stupidity like this in public!!
imagine he got some nerve. Didn’t one of his business * * * closed down owing tons of taxes and contributions for workers and payouts?
Yet he was Minister for labour.We are really corrupt
Cowapsion
MASSIVE LAYOFFS
The reality is that politicians carefully crafted legislation a few years ago to enrich themselves on the back of the taxpayer, FOR LIFE! None of them give a f**k about our kids, none of them give a f**k about businesses, none of them give a f**k about any of us. They just say enough nice things so that you remember them next election and vote them back in to live high on the hog. Just think about this, every single elected official that was voted out earlier this year will be collecting a full monthly salary from Government Treasury for the next 24 months, while businesses and people suffer.
“it will indicate to us that you have succumbed to the lure of business donations and are no longer to be trusted with our money”
err…, some of us came to that realization a VERY long time ago my friend.
Just do not conduct any business with any BVI company that is negligent in payment of their BVI liabilities(NHI, SS, utilities, etc.)
What about NHI whose payment are months behind and if you don’t call and beg you don’t get any.
I laugh at the commenters, many of whom who are obviously not business owners. There are business owners that have misused monies, took advantage of employees etc. But there are many others who are trying and have tried but it’s not enough and they just cannot make it. Businesses have no way of getting any buffer to keep things going so they do what they have to do to avoid closing, even if it means not paying SSB or NHI as bad as it is. We have been experiencing some very slow months, patiently awaiting November when things will begin buzzing again. In the past banks would’ve extended small loans, refinancing options, lines of credit and other means of assistance, right now? NOTHING! So they are telling you walk the straight road, don’t run/sell drugs, while choking you off dead with their bare hands.
stfu you don’t know anything. Ya’ll come on the comments talking fart instead of minding your business and reading to understand. You donkey
Yup! Like everywhere else in the real world. Should have happened since Irma and during Covid. Only in the BVI businesses can afford to payout what they are not making.
Businesses are going under but to use such vague language and with a bent of sensationalism isn’t helpful
In the past societies people learned a skill, passed it down and made a living or hunted and gathered.
“Business” is a sorry excuse for modern livelihood for anyone except a corporation. Survival by trade or service is a human right.