COI displaying a double standard, Premier suggests
Premier Andrew Fahie has suggested that the Commission of Inquiry (COI) is displaying double standards regarding the submission of government documents to assist with proceedings.
He made that suggestion against the backdrop of some additional documents his administration recently discovered and provided to the COI last Friday. The documents amounted to approximately a thousand pages.
Nonetheless, Fahie said his government anticipated criticism for the provision of the documents from the COI.
“It was puzzling that on Friday the Commission was heavily critical of the government for missing a deadline for the provision of other information, due by 4 pm and provided at 10 am the following day and stated that this delay required the Commission to postpone part of its hearing by two weeks,” Fahie said.
The Premier said it seems “extraordinary” that the COI requires two weeks to assess thirty pages of documents while his ministers and public servants are given a week or less to provide hundreds of pages of documents.
He added that his ministers are expected to enter the witness box and comment on documents for which they have not seen or given notice.
Gov’t wishes to give COI all the facts
Fahie said the elected government wishes to provide the commission with all the facts and relevant documents to assist with the proceeding.
However, he said, the commission has sometimes given the impression that it does not welcome the provision of the additional evidence.
The government said that the additional documents provided were the result of intensive efforts by the public servants of the Virgin Islands to find evidence that might be helpful to the COI.
It added that these documents are in addition to the 9,000 documents totalling 130,000 pages, and dozens of affidavits provided to the COI via requests made already.
According to the government, the process is time-consuming and takes up a majority of its public service administrative capacity during an ongoing pandemic.
Since the commencement of the Inquiry, the Commission has spoken about the protracted delays in submission of documents by the government which has hampered the progress of proceedings.
COI attorney Bilal Rawat had earlier voiced his concerns about the government failures to meet deadlines and the subsequent extensions to those deadlines in submitting requested affidavits.
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Deadlines here do not seem to mean the same as elsewhere in the world. If documents are requested for 4pm, it is not an acceptable excuse that we provided them at 10am the next day. Deadlines are set to allow the requesting party to schedule work around when documents are expected to be provided. By submitting documents late it disrupts other work and slows processes down. As we saw with the constantly late press conferences related to COVID updates, this government has no respect for the time of the BVI’s citizens and clearly that lack of respect extends to the COI
Complete tardiness,
He is not entitled to be making any demands. The DPP should be carting him off to Balsum – it is a serious offence that he is committing.
The CoI has made no attempt to respond to the complaint made by the AG about it breaching the confidentiality protocols last week. It has not answered because it knows that it has been caught by the short and curlies, and that there is nothing that it can say to justify its behaviour.
The COI did respond to the AG. They just didn’t make their correspondence public. Cry about that so that the government can go to government house and DEMAND it be made public, like they did when they asked for the COI and wanted it to be public so they could know who testified and what they said so they could heap retribution on their heads.
The documents were over a thousand pages, not categorized and late after an extension was requested. The Foy is getting testy as the walls begin to close around him. The prosecution phase is just around the corner. This will be good.
We all know the status of files and documents in government. Why pretend that anything is organised, structured or actually documented properly? It would be easier for the Government to acknowledge the state of affairs to move on from this..
You are single handedly responsible for the COI. Between your tales carrying to the former governors and your outright untruths for political power to your blatant disrespect for the last governor and the British Government with those childish letters you wrote to the Secretary of State. This is all you Hon. Fahie. What you forgot was that your government would have been looked into as well. You should be ashamed.
Fahie: “He added that his ministers are expected to enter the witness box and comment on documents for which they have not seen or given notice.”
Are you saying that the COI are asking questions to your Minister pertaining to his ministry concerning documents executed at the time he was not the Minister? If so, then COI wrong! If not, then the Minister must know what the documents are about and the questions asked would be LEGIT.
Wheel and come again.
I have been turning in documents in triplicate for 20 years…where do they go?? I easily got 1,000 pages you can borrow if you need them.
Not too surprising that you can not put your hands on your notes and documents…not sure you could locate head if you were trying to put your hat on.
Cant wait to see the last of this less incompetent administration.
Document control is so important. If the files had been done properly, and scanned appropriately, there would not have been delay retrieving them. Perhaps some of you head of depts. would be best educated by taking courses in Document Control.