BVI may have missed opportunity to bag UK’s loan guarantee offer
Premier Dr Natalio Wheatley has hinted that the BVI may have missed its opportunity to secure the £300 million loan guarantee offer made by the United Kingdom years ago after two major hurricanes devastated the territory.
“It’s something that we can return to see if we can get it back on the table, but we’ve essentially lost the opportunity to get the guarantee as of right now. Whether we can get the opportunity again, it depends on us,” the Premier told reporters at a recent press conference.
Meanwhile, the government recently signalled its intention to seek a sizeable loan to put towards the territory’s infrastructural development and continued recovery from hurricanes Irma and Maria. But the Premier said the projects for which the government is seeking funding would not be large enough to secure the UK’s loan guarantee.
Dr Wheatley said at the time: “We need to make a heavy investment in our infrastructure — in our roads, in our bridges, in our drains, in our culverts — all of these different areas of our infrastructure need investment but those can only be done if we make an injection into the infrastructure through something like a loan.”
However, Premier Wheatley pointed out that there are still other projects that the government will need to have discussions about in the future.
“For instance, the expansion of the airport. That would cost upwards of $200 million. A guarantee and those low-interest rates would be helpful,” he stated.
Just recently, the Premier stated that the Althea Scatliffe Primary School will most likely have to be rebuilt with loan funding, however no decisions have been made by the government on whether the school will actually be demolished and rebuilt and what the likely cost for this would be.
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Why would you even mention $200mm and the airport? The current airport is fine. Before we borrow any money we need a long term plan. It needs to start with education then let’s consider putting out the fire at the dump and a overall waste plan. Then let’s consider our need for sustainable utilities and a long term plan to achieve that. Then let’s consider road maintenance and how we will achieve that. Then let’s consider new high speed ferries to meet passengers in STT and upgrading their arrival experience in the BVI. When passengers arrive in Tahiti they are given a lei (flowers). Why not do the same here?
When the hon julian fraser had mentioned it you was one who scuffed at him
Wasn’t he the one who seconded the motion when Andrew Fahie refused to take it?
REALLY, I would loan you anything either..most offers do not hang around for 4 or 5 years! Especially for continuous governments to waste.
sturpsss… poppy show; Wasn’t he right there “defending nonsense” when we was squandering this opportunity?
What happened to the 16 million loan that Andrew said he loan for the roads?
He’s mentioning the airport because he realizes for him to even come close to being elected to appease some greedy persons in his district he has to get that project going.
The airport is the next big money grabber for all parties including the concrete party, that is what it’s all about not love for the country. The social security housing did not play off like it should have so the airport is the next big cookie jar.
The UK in my opinion did not break the cycle of greed and corruption after the fiasco in 2003 it got worst. How can a convicted man get on the airport board is mind-boggling how did the UK let that happened.
They were persons who were convicted for less and lost all hope of ever getting back in the civil service or being paid for their years. This is a funny place and the joke is on the people.
Is this man good in he head? It was him, Andrew and Carvin who were the ones bad mouthing the UK deal. Remember that meeting they held at the college about the loan guarantee telling a set of lies? Remember the UK minister has to write an open letter to the BVI saying that they were lying? Now he is pretending that he wasn’t apart of it. This man either has amnesia, Alzheimer’s or an out of the body experience. In any event, something wrong with he.
They thought the stupid islanders would take a loan guarantee while they owed us many times that in reparations. The colonist should be ashamed to dangle their sham offer to us while avoiding the millions owed.
Might be better to pay as you go rather than saddling the island with huge debts to service. If the interest on those loans are very high you can get stuck just paying interest and nothing else for years to come. Jamaica and Barbados have been caught in that loop. It’s a bad place to be.
you don’t need any loans, you just have to stop the distribution of money. 1 million for an ac and 1 million for an elevator and 1 million for a wall….
You should be ashame to be saying that now. I often wonder how big educated adults allow Fahie to lead them astray and guide them wrongfully.. Ive been saying from day one, take the daxxmn money. Fahie knew his bad intension all along
even if he did go for the populist nonsense to garner xenophobic support at the expense our own interests and development, the fact he is realising the error now is a positive. In many things, people learn and adapt their position.
While the old deal and all the valuable experienced persons who stayed here to help us rebuild have gone, it is worth looking at whether new deals that deliver similar outcomes can be struck. It’s plainly in the UK’s interests for the OTs to all have robust, up to date infrastructure and a vibrant self sufficient economy. That and proper governance systems in place and they really don’t need to study us after.
you forgot SEWAGE / he forgot he is one of those uppets who licked master FOI batty
This man side with foy on everything and didn’t say a word now all of a sudden the public supposed to believe that he the best choice to lead us… this man only care about keeping his job that’s it!
Only now u see u missed opportunity
, well sah you see light very late , these opportunity far gone done the road . All of you all run after them so cry now
It’s not a miss. They dolled it up as a hurricane relief fund. Guess what that hurricane was 5 years ago. It’s a trap. My god you will indebt us to dollars and pounds which we do not print nor obviously make enough of or we wouldn’t need a loan.
It’s 5 years on we really don’t need a loan thank you very much. No more slavery in any form!!!!
Wellsah! Where all-uh get loan from? There was no money there. It was a LOAN GUARANTEE. In other words if you could manage to qualify for a loan we would back it and for up to four hundred million dollars. Jeeze! Please learn the last colonists double talk. Nothing there.