BVI Airways planes found! Reportedly sold twice since 2017
By Kamal Haynes, BVI News Staff
Premier Andrew Fahie has revealed that the two aircraft associated with the botched BVI Airways deal under the previous NDP administration have been found and are presently operating in Australia.
Premier Fahie made the announcement in the House of Assembly on Tuesday (February 25), and said investigations uncovered that the two planes, which were previously owned by BVI Airways, were eventually sold twice — first to a company in Canada and then to another company in Australia.
He said his government had continued to retain the services of Martin Kenny and Co Solicitors (MKS) – a law firm that handles fraud and asset recovery cases – upon entering office in February 2019.
They were initially hired by the NDP administration to determine why the BVI Airways deal failed, what had happened to the $7.2 million of public funds that government gave to the airline, and to identify a viable way to recover these lost funds.
“In July 2019 MKS delivered a report, setting out the firm’s interim findings and conclusions. In the course of MKS’s investigation, the firm determined that the two BAE Avro Airplanes acquired in 2016 by BVA for the project was sold to the original supplier of the planes, Tronos Jet of Prince Edward Island, Canada,” Premier Fahie stated.
“These planes appeared to have been resold in the market and are now being flown by operators based in Missoula Montana and Australia,” he added.
Government being sued and are counter suing
Premier Fahie further revealed that as a result of the investigation, BVI Airways filed a claim against the government of the Virgin Islands in June 2019, before the American Arbitration Association in New York.
He said: “This claim seeks an unidentified sum of damages. It is based on allegations which the government strongly refutes. In response, the government has instructed MKS to file a defence and counterclaim seeking an award of $7.2 million against BVI Airways.”
“However, the arbitration proceedings have been placed on hold while the parties comply with the relevant terms of the framework agreement to attempt to compromise the dispute, by way of mediation,” Premier Fahie further explained.
According to the Premier, his government cannot reveal any further details on the matter at this time because of the confidential nature of the mediation process.
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Keep drip feeding information lol
The BVIAirways deal is the greatest blunder in the Caribbean. NDP should be ashamed.
If BVI Airways received $7.2 million from the BVI Government, to whom have they delivered services for that exorbitant amount of public funds? I wonder at them turning around and suing the Government of the BVI and going to Arbitration, so that some compromise would be proposed instead of their refunding the money for non-delivery of services. They need to refund the money and if they gave some unknown service to unknown entities then they could claim from that entity or those entities.
Is it only a coincidence that the former CEO of BVI Airways lives in Prince Edward Islands? What’s his relationship with the company that bought and sold our airplanes?
Will someone teach our elected officials how to use Google. If they had used it before handing out $7.2 they would have saved us a Lot of dollars.
Planes where never owned they were leased stop miss leading
Thank you very much. That was my initial understanding.
It was Dr.Smith who always made it sound like the plane was ours. It was always false advertisement. It would be hard to find statements from government stating the planes were leased. When information was requested he always said it would prejudice the deal or some other excuse why he couldn’t answer.
Actually we gave them the money for the plane so it should have been our plane but it seem like we were stupid enough to give somebody money to buy something just to end up leasing it. Smh
Anybody can buy planes for 7 millon? Why we love talking f***ry in this place? Hardly any airline outright buys planes and a plane like BVI Airways had would cost about $20mil or more a piece. The govt simply got conned by the blue eyed boys in black suits. Sucm it up and move along because that money is long spent and not a dime will be given back as they will all file bankruptcy and claim inability to pay. A simple google search at the time of that deal wouldve shown the principals were involved in a similar deal which went down the tubes.
When is the BVI Government going to hold the BVI Board of Directors accountable
Bunch ah sophisticated high criminal thieves, and we been had!
Thank you Premier Fahie for getting to the bottom of this matter. So happy to hear the money at some point may be recovered which means the BVI Government will be able to pay the lost wages for the pilots and cabin crew who not only lost their jobs but we’re out of pocket for over three months worth of wages. I’ll be following this story closely.
This website has really dropped in quality, a bunch of weak stories… who is running this new media?
They had already knew it was there anyways you guys Falk for that at at at at at futaba home baraka Don Dada room boom boom boom 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 + 2200 room room room room room room room speak now listening listening corky the phone is off my name is the fan is on yes troll troll hoard yeah Fifi Fifi
no wonder the rest of the caribbean calls us idiots. We give out our resources willy nilly to everyone except to the locals. Who are you building this country for? Government love to hand out money without ever receiving anything or until projects are completed. You know how many foreigners got plenty of money for uncompleted projects. #followthemoney
This is not why the rest of the Caribbean call us idiots, regrettably.
Lol lol highway robbery.
We need to seize those planes
My info is that they were BOTH purchased for less than US$400,000, and ended up parked in a Canadian maintenance facility where they already had periodic “heavy maintenance” done. When nobody paid the bills, they remained there. At some point the company would have had the legal right to sell them for the amount owing, and they did so.
In any case, any time Americans come around and propose a deal, make damned sure you can get your money back. Their leader is now at 16,000 lies to his own people, and as you come down his business tree it only gets worse.
Americans have but ONE God – The Almighty Dollar – and if they can suck out every penny you have, they will do with without the slightest concern. But they will offer you “thoughts and prayers” as they leave in their luxury car with you laying in the gutter homeless.
how that transaction even happen, what a con
Dr. Quack D Orlando was a bad premier and A. Fahie is nothing better. This is a classic case of pot calling the kettle bottom black.
This is nothing new. The case was already in litigation and being investigated from the NDP administration. Don’t make it seem nor sound as if VIP did all this ground work. They just came in on the back end.
Secondly, nobody ever on the face of the planet ever bought a used car and ended up with a lemon? Ever bought a brand new computer and the motherboard just died shortly after purchase and was told that is what simply happens? No one ever bought a phone or any electronic equipment especially from a preivous user and end up being scammed?
The deal was made with good intentions. So that our BVI people would have greater access as well as persons intending to travel to BVI.
Things are not as cut and dry and disrepecting Dr. Smith for all he has done for this Territory is disgraceful.
It was a deal gone bad. Think back on how many persons were so excited when they heard the mention of us having our own airline with direct flights? People were already planning vacation.
It was a move made for the betterment of our people and territory. Sadly as one commenter said, in American money is God, so most times persons are always putting money first and will screw anyone over down to their mother, sad to say.