CDB assesses RDA’s competency to manage $65M loan funds
By Davion Smith, BVI News Staff
The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) is currently assessing whether the Recovery and Development Agency (RDA) is capable of managing funds from the $65 million they loaned to the BVI for rehabilitation and reconstruction.
Director of Projects at the CDB Daniel Best made that disclosure while answering questions from BVI News during the bank’s annual media conference in Barbados on Thursday.
He said the CDB is now awaiting a report from their team that recently concluded the evaluation of the RDA.
“Our team went in just two weeks ago and have done a comprehensive institutional assessment of that. They are actually preparing the report now so we are moving to that stage with respect to who manages various components of the project,” Best said.
“They will advise us accordingly on where the [recovery and rehabilitation] projects will go moving forward,” he added.
The Ministry of Finance is currently the agency in conduct of monies from the loan.
The CDB’s projects director further suggested that the bank is permitting central government to have control over the monies until their assessment has concluded.
Asked for a timeline in relation to when the RDA will be handed management of the funds — if they are determined to be competent enough, Best said: “I wouldn’t want to give you a date. The arrangement between the RDA and the government of the British Virgin Islands is a bit of an internal conversation. What we as a development institution needs to do is to ensure that the RDA is both competent and has the capacity to implement these projects once that arrangement is sorted out, and we have done that.”
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They are just buying time hoping that the NDP loses the election
Same Way that PVIM founder should have bought time to the 26th on we treasury funds for wasted asphalt
I think they’re smart enough to know that won’t happen. Under the last VIP the CDB won’t even release their $15 mil that was approved. NDP got $65 mil even after Irma, run and talk that.
Looks like the government finally found an avenue to get their greedy hands on the money. They have been p****d that they weren’t in control and weren’t able to secure their brown envelopes under the table. Don’t let any stone go unturned to advance the greed and corruption of ALL the politicians.
the UK has given assurances for $300mil so whats the hold up?
The loan assurances require oversight and proper audits.
Why didn’t Orlando issue the financial audit on the pier? Why was he 7 years behind on issuing the annual BVI audits?
The answers point to fiscal mismanagement.
The CDB is smelling the corruption odor. Imagine, $18 mil for “consultancy service.”
That is fancy term for steering monies from its intended use into pockets of individuals it was not intended for.
Poor BVI. She keep getting ripped.
You are so clueless. CDB themselves have mandated that consultancies must be use in certain instances.
Of course I am clueless, but neither of us know where the money disappears to, as none of us are privi to the facts, are we? Well, maybe you are.
Consultancy services can be mandated in some instances appear to be a loop hole so big several “consultancy airlines services” can pass through it abreast.
Not every one is foolish nor in-comprehensible Johnson.
If my memory serves me right, the BVI was ravaged by two monster hurricanes Irma and Maria in September 2017, causing approximately $3.6B in damages. It is now February 2019 just days before an election on 25 Feb and we are still piddling around about a $65M CDB loan. It is a good thing that the territory was not destroyed and it is not in an emergency situation.
The Recovery and Development Agency (RDA), an alternative government, is an insult to and a setback for the people of VI. It is step, a few steps back to colonialism. Instead of having more autonomy, it is losing ground on what it had. The VI should be moving forward, not backward. Nevertheless, this travesty was inflicted on the VI and its people by government’s poor planning and piss poor performance.
Due to lack of confidence in government, after the decimating storms, the UK, the Mother country, give the BVI £10M and dangled £300M as a co-signed loan but only if it set up an RDA. It was a double whammy for the VI; it was devastated by Imaria and piled on by the UK. Think it would have done the same to Gibraltar or the Falkland Islands? This $65M CDB loan ting is confusing.
The CDB loan was approved it seems ions ago yet we are still haggling about disbursing the loan. Is the CDB taking its approvh from the UK? Yes. The CDB is thinking, I think, that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Is the CDB skeptical about the RDA and its $300K per annum CEO? If the CEO were local and was being paid $300K, the VI would be in an uproar. Self hatred run amok. We have come a long way yet not to far.
While I’m on my rant, my attention now turns to the Cabinet. Though that the BVI had a unicameral HOA. Nonetheless, though some elected members make up the Cabinet, it seems as if the Cabinet has more juice than the elected HOA. Think I will go back to sleep now. Somebody wake me up after the election and after the CDB releases the $65M loan.
Thank you! My sentiments exactly. If the RDA is really here to help us rebuild, why on God’s green earth does a CEO have to be paid $300k per annum. Are we going to standby and allow that to happen. They are suppose to be helping us not taking from us.
These are serious times we need leaders with the track record and respect to guide the BVI at this time.
We just need fresh leaders that are beyond the shadow of corruption and fiscal mismanagement.
All of our NDP Minister (current and former alike) are in that Dark Shadow.
This has cast a cloud over our future. Until they are gone and their misdeeds are publicly known we will continue to suffer and live as their servants.
Its our money. Lets take it back with all new leaders!
We said that in 2007 and a year didnt pass good and we were apologizing to NDP and begging them to come back. How soon we forget, keep thinking this is a game.
It is a game to many and one where the rules, not just the players need to be changed. Why should the former Opposition leader now have to request Elections for audit trails because of suspected registration fraud? Until VIslanders wake up and realise the many lawyers in Town will not work for free and that we need to understand our own laws and the loopholes in many of them, we will never advance constitutional and human rights prioritisation. Consequently, we will always be in this cycle quibbling over money. Money was made for man, not man for money. WAKE UP.
Well need leaders yes but most of them now are recycled. We need fresh blood all around.