Billion-dollar budget barely keeps BVI’s lights on — Deputy Premier
Despite claims that the BVI has benefited from a massive billion-dollar budget with each successive government, Deputy Premier Dr Natalio Wheatley has contended that this amount is insufficient.
Dr Wheatley made that assertion amid suggestions that BVI governments have largely squandered this budget over the years.
Speaking on Virgin Islands Party’s ‘Let’s Talk’ radio programme recently, he argued that the government’s annual budget now needs to be ‘expanded’.
“The same $1 billion that they’re talking about in three, four years [that each administration is in office], that cannot run the BVI,” he stated. “We need to turn that $1 billion into $2 billion.”
He said this was the main reason behind the government’s attempts at diversifying the economy and for exploring new revenue initiatives.
“Don’t be fooled by what you’re hearing, $1 billion is not a lot of money in the Virgin Islands. It’s a small amount of money,” the Deputy Premier argued. “It can barely keep the lights on.”
The first-term legislator said much more persons have been working for government than in earlier years, forcing its expenditure to be stretched.
Most of budget pays public workers
Dr Wheatley said he estimated that nearly 80 percent of the territory’s budget goes to the payment of salaries in the public service.
He further argued that no public servants lost their job in the midst of a horrible global pandemic, despite revenues being down for the territory and the inactivity in the tourism sector.
Dr Wheatley also praised the government for being able to pay increments to public servants during this time and said the government is also required to pay huge subventions to statutory bodies as well.
Works Minister Kye Rymer also attempted to diffuse the notion that the budget wasn’t being spent appropriately.
“We have it out there being said that since this administration took place, we have expended over or nearly $1 billion and they can’t see where that money is going,” Rymer said.
He explained that there were many areas that the budget was spent on, particularly in areas such as recurrent expenditure, emoluments, pensions and operational costs among others.
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The Minister looking for a little more pocket change
Spending 80% of the budget on public service salaries rather suggests that the public service is too big and too expensive. It is extraordinary that the Govt appears to be the only employer in the Territory that did not take the opportunity of Covid to consider whether it needs all of its employees. Seriously, not one employee too many!!!
Exactly
Government will either have to trim itself, which it will not or it must find more funds to sustain it.
So expect more fees, taxes, fines on the tourist who is our bread and butter. They will in turn vote with their feet and leave and never return.
Then, the only option will be for government to tax us. Sales, income, earnings, property will all be taxed as we are forced to support a government that is so bloated and corrupt. Think it won’t happen?
Get your head out of the sand.
About 10 years or so ago, govt commissioned an efficiency study of its operations. Of course, no final report, but the executive summary stated something along the lines that there was there was about 35% too many to fulfil the necessary functions. I don’t thing any action ever came of that, as eliminating govt jobs also means not getting their vote at the next election.
Consider also the salary amount involved: $ 800 million/year. Say there are 12,000 belongers, of which about 60% are of working age, so 7,200 working belongers. If all of them worked for the govt, they’d be clearing $ 1 million+ each on average, yet most govt salaries are less than $ 50K. Something does not add up here.
I’d also say the claim of a $ 1 billion budget is far fetched (though some years ago the Territory’s GNP was in excess of that figure, nut GNP is not the same as a national budget).
It also seems that spending 80% of the budget on salaries seems a bit far fetched, since there are loans to pay, not to mention rents, utilities etc. This suggests that Dr. Wheatley is perhaps misinformed or is not doing a good job of explaining. That said, no disagreement with his assertion that previous governments (and this one) have squandered the public purse
Shut your modas**nt bur cutting the public Servants.
But yet the little that is there should have been prioritorized. Too much unnecessary spending.
Bro, you are in a sad state of hallucinations.
Whatever rituals they give you to practice, please
stop it. Examine yourself, this is not you speaking in the first person.
A billion dollars and how much of that is spent on Schools, roads, reliable utilities.
Why doesn’t our dump work? Where is all of the money going?
That’s a clueless face
Can we please replace this clueless puppet with someone with a financial background? Secondly, can we please finally reduce the government work force who take home 90% of the overall budget and start putting money in schools and roads instead?
HE SIMPLY NEEDS TO FIX THE SCHOOLS. NOTHING ELSE.
Can’t even mark a paper on time and still some students waiting for years for a paper they turned in. Speaks well and a big disappointment. No 2nd chance for you. Stood there and supported a lot of rubbish including victimizing people and some of your own district people. Weakling
The VIP has blown over a billion dollars in just 3 short years with nothing to show because we are still driving in potholes and raw sewage
Where is that 2 billion going to come from? More money from the tax payers, many of which could barely keep their lights on?
We in trouble Buddy
if the voters could have only seen intentions before hand.
How many towns in England, the US or Canada have an annual budget anything like the $400m that this Government just passed? It’s been that sort of figure for years; it was $250m in 2005, if memory serves.
If what the Government has is not enough, they need to change the way they do business. It’s not like a high school, a working sewage system, an incinerator and functional roads are that remarkable.
Where did all that money go?
You continue to throw money at the problem. That’s where the problem lies. Not everything is solved with money. In fact, real innovative solutions have a small cash component. That’s what we elected you people to do — spend time brainstorming innovated solutions for our problems but you never had it in you. Instead, you waste valuable time throwing words at the U.K. Government and each other.
Reduce public service salaries to 50% of the budget.
Can I give this comment a thousand votes??!!
We’d all feel better if you had used the last three years to clear all the mold from all the schools, yourself.
At this late hour doing so won’t work. Gots to go. We will try him one more time to teach at the college. Hopefully he does much better on that round.
This guy need a consultant lol
maybe if you guys didn’t blow our money on crap projects that never do what you say they will
Here this man who never ran anything. Shut the h**l up.
It’s not just the salaries of the public servants that are a drain on the budget. It’s the renting of expensive office accommodation in the private sector and all those nice Government vehicles that we see driving around (purchase cost, maintenance etc). If it was their own money, they would be a lot more frugal.
the problem is the big YOUTH is reading from 5
the script
The Problem Lies with how Democracies Structure their Beauracracies…
All the Big Names have to be Paid First.. By the Time the allotted Budget for the Project is Tabled
There is very Little Left to do the actual Works
ADMINISTRATORS… DEPUTIES.. FOREMAN DEPUTY.. FOREMAN …CONTRACTOR.. DEPUTY ..BOSS..OVERSEER
SO THE GROUND BREAKING CEREMONIES HAPPENED 2 YEARS
AGO..AND WHEN ELECTION SEASON BEGINS THEN ACTING STARTS..BY THE ACTING PERMANENT SECRETARIES..
PLEASE ?. NOTE I SAID ***ACTING****BTW..
Well this is a slick way of justifying the retirement bill you all passed! 1 billion is not enough? Reduce the f’ing civil service since it is eating up80% of the budget.
Where is the $1B going? Poor Roads, No Garbage Disposal, Poor Telecommunications, Poor state of Schools, No water in the pipes, Sewage on the roads, No institution for mentally challenged, no high school, no integrated government system to making doing business easier, outdated technology, no renewable energy on a large scale, etc…
What will $2B show? Better class vehicles for you and the government to drive around in?
VIP, NDP all yall the same crap.
Honorable (?!?) SoWhatsGoingOn? -> His lights are on (barely) but nobody home.
I am here to help you my good friend Dr. Doolittle. Let me build a few schools for you, a new West End Ferry Dock and a new airport. You can use my Detroit Bank account to wire my consultancy fees to..
Wtf is wrong with Showade? Is this guy crazy or just simply stupid? He does not analyze what he is going to say before he spits it out. This government have consultants on the payroll at salaries ranginging from $7,000 to over $10,000 monthly to just walk the street, not putting a foot in the office that they are hired to be a consultant for. BVI has a population of sbout 30,000, Bahamas population 400,601 budget $1.7 billion, Bermuda population 63,000 budget $993 million, and Showande thinks his government needd $2 billion to run this 4×4 island with 30,000 people. My God how did we get here? Where is HM Queen Elizabeth to deliver us from the lion’s den? These people are a shameless band of thieves. They just retroactively paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to past legislators, a move to greatly benefit themselves and boost their financial future. I am ashamed to be a Bvislander in these times. VIP has taken governance down the drain. Smfh
… Cayman 65000 people only recently hit a Bn budget (incl for a big new modern airport etc)… the list goes on. The UK said they would stand behind us for an extra 400m cheaply, and we turned that down because it would have to be spent properly.
Now I’ve heard it all. And my conclusion is that all non-techinical “doctors” should be banned from any sort of technical or financial management.
It isn’t just the salaries is it, let’s be honest. Trips to Miami to go shopping? Ask the staff at SSB about that.
Boy I hope they find that extra billion to make the budget 2 billion because 1 billion divided by our population of 35,000 is a universal income of 28,571
WOW
If they take the current budget of 1 billion of which 80% or 800m is used in government salary… reduce government salary expenditure by 25%, spending 600m & saving 200m, that 200m divided by our population of 35,000 is 5,714 universal income for every person each year.
Of that 35,000 population some may not be eligible.
Check how we have the means to provide for our local people in excess and foster entrepreneurship territory wide…
but there is no action except for Covid-19 related grants, which did not include the whole territory as can be done every single year…. with a billion dollar budget.
I no longer will think why billionaires dont do more seeing as our government is playing both cheap & inefficient with our money.
We in trouble buddy! This guy is the Deputy? NDP VIP PIP SIP I don’t matter what P, all of dem are terrible options. What a sad state of affairs
PVIM too. The pot only stirred. Independents where are you?
We in trouble buddy! This guy is the Deputy? NDP VIP PIP SIP I don’t matter what P, all of dem are terrible options. What a sad state of affairs