ESHS donor prefers to remain anonymous, Premier says
Premier Dr Natalio Wheatley has indicated that the anonymous donor who gave $4 million towards the Elmore Stoutt High School redevelopment project prefers to remain private and checks from the Ministry of Finance have indicated the funds are from a legitimate source.
Shortly after challenging 70 local businesspersons and companies to each donate no less than $60,000 to the project, former Premier, Andrew Fahie, announced that a benefactor donated $2 million and pledged to donate another $2 million to the redevelopment effort.
But there have been concerns from residents regarding the source of the funding and the person behind the donation given the Commission of Inquiry’s (COI) reports of corruption in the territory and given the recent arrest of Fahie on charges of money laundering and drug trafficking in the United States.
However, current Premier Dr Wheatley sought to alleviate the public’s fears, stating that the Finance Ministry carried out extensive checks to ensure the donation came from a legitimate source.
“I did follow up on that particular matter and did learn that the donor prefers to be private, and I did learn that the Ministry of Finance did all the vetting necessary to ensure that the funds were legitimate funds,” Dr Wheatley said at a press conference last Friday.
“The Ministry of Finance did the process that is usually done. That is looking into the background, looking into the source of funds and things like that and everything checks out. The funds are legitimate, but the donor chooses to remain private,” he added.
The ESHS Redevelopment Project is expected to be completed in time for the reopening of the new school year in late August and a budget of $11 million was set aside for the project, $3 million more than what was initially announced.
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STOP BICKERING BACK AND FORTH. LETS SEE ACTION AND HEAR LESS TALKING!
What will he want in return for that hefty donation?
Well, he gave it when Fahie was in thinking it’ll buy him some perks, seeing no Fahie there and the UK about to come through, those perks are now gone. I’m guessing he wants that money back but don’t know how to ask for it?.
Peter Haycraft gave at least $1 million for the rebuilding of the school ( and probably more like $2 million ). He didnt have a motive other than to help.
But we need to know who this is before we can decide ontheir motive , if any.
You seem to have some inside information. Nobody has confirmed the benefactor is male.
Maybe a decent education for our kids and future work force?
Charity is not a crime. But guilty until proven innocent and everyone likes to know everything about everybody. I bet if it was some famous european we wouldn’t have a problem with it. If I had the resources I would’ve done that and more. We shouldn’t villainize a good samaritian for doing good. It’s just killing some of you that you don’t know their business and that’s exactly what they want is to keep you all out their business that doesn’t concern you. It was a donation just like any other from any other business it just came directly from the individual. Now I don’t know all the details either but let’s not paint them a criminal for caring about the BVI children’s education.
We want to thank he/she/them too but we need a name to thank
Why? Why do we need a name? If there are no strings attached, we don’t need a name.
If we had transparency and accountability legislation, there would be ways to ensure there are no strings whilst leaving the donor name out of it.
yet another thing to fix.
What should be a crime or just a public shame. All these fatcats will blame Irma and extenuating circumstances in the same breathe they use to lie about “BVI Love”. If it were a bigger church, thier own business or own house they would pour money, ill gotten or ot into it.
Most of their kids and other family attended this school. The whole thing was falling into shambles before Irma came along.
Seriously, the only thing our local leaders and business people are good at is protecting their pieces of the lie and talking out both sides of their mouths when confronted on these isssues.
Want to stop the UK taking over? Build a time machine go back 20 years and take all that money each of you have taken and put it to serve your so called ‘BVI Love’.
I’m sure the reason why that didn’t happen is all of your are complicit in a culture of corruption and the nail that will stand out will get hammered.
I guess the only people that can be “leaders” in this place are those who can live with themselves after being in a position of power and contributing to making things worse.
I know I can’t do that but I guess that’s why they shut me out.
Just know that all the dereliction and ghettoization amd destruction, we can blame the outside but in the end…..we did it to ourselves.
Now looking upon the BVI from the outside we basically turned ourselves into a broken nation and invited ourselves to be a dumping ground for a whole lot of darkness.
And like the people say all the time and which is probably happening. If the people of the BVI say want and act like they want the BVI but everything they actually do shows they don’t.
Outsiders will be more than hapoy to co.e lay claim. We’ll just be here broken and corrput, complaining that outsiders are taking over.
The future we were told to fear by the leaders when I was growing up…..we’ve made it a self-fulfilling prophecy by refusing to turn that lens on ourselves as a society.
Is this not similar to a political donation? Why should it be anonymous? Whilst we all appreciate the gesture, we need to know there are no strings attached and we can only know by full disclosure.
Sorry. Then he should build his own school as a private enterprise and do it through a shell company so he’s truly anonymous. This is a government project. Transparency requires we know who it is. If he or she doesn’t agree, give the money back. It’s either we understand the importance of transparency or…we don’t.
Who says “the donor” is a he??
It could be a she….
I think I’ve given up on any hope of this country changing. Something like who is providing money to a school needs to be known information. Money in politics needs to be transparent and public knowledge. The fact that the Premier is coming in to his position because the previous one was found corrupt but he’s still not seeing the value of transparency just tells me he’s more or less the same.
Well get your collective a$$es in gear and stop taking donations, and take care of your own if it bothers you so much.
I do not see a single prominent BVI family doing $hit for this community! Not one! Especially those that have milked the public purse for so long. All you hear is crickets when it comes to taking care of their own!
Take the free handout and then bitch about it. So BVI!
Ask the wealthy ‘son of the soil’ BVI families to step up. Bet you don’t get a dime! 😉
I’m not surprised you are banished with such a negative attitude.
Being critical does not necessarily equate to being negative. Had there been more criticism in recent times the BVI would not be in its present predicament.
To be honest this Premier is no different than Andrew. What is there to hide? I the donor a drugs lord also, he or she wants to be anonymous
Only our bank in the west can donate that sum,PERIODT!!
I have a few concerns with just this position and it can be summed up from just analysing the first paragraph:
“Premier Dr Natalio Wheatley has indicated that the anonymous donor who gave $4 million towards the Elmore Stoutt High School redevelopment project prefers to remain private and checks from the Ministry of Finance have indicated the funds are from a legitimate source.”
(1) Anonymous donors towards a government project, especially in that amount and in the post-COI report atmosphere is a big NO, NO. If someone wanted to donate that amount and remain anonymouse, they could have done it through a corporate vehicle (and if you can throw $4M at us, you know how to do this already). Every “donation” tends to come with strings attached, and we the public deserve to know that when certain concessions / contracts / waivers are issued that they are in no way related to a certain “anonymous donation”.
(4) Four million dollars… $4,000,000.00
That is more money that I have made in my lifetime, but that’s besides the point. The point is the difference between how financial institutions (like our banks) treat us when we engage in transactions in excess of certain amounts or even make regular deposits outside of our regular pattern of deposits without showing legitimate sources of income. Even when we travel, none of us are allowed to travel with more than $10,000 without declaring it to customs. We can’t pay our government tax bills in excess of certain cash amounts without raising eyebrows and alarms. Our backgrounds and records are checked before we can engage in multiple transactions with legitimate businesses.
BUT… the people of the BVI are supposed to take our Premier’s word for it that the anonymous donor is a “good guy” who just wishes to stay incognito and we can take his word for it?
Oh, how I wish I could!
(3) We can be sure that the money comes from a legitimate source because the Ministry of Finance did their due diligence and were assured that the revenue is “clean”.
O K … This is the same MoF that did their due diligence into the failed BVI Airways figureheads and determined that they were respectable business people, right? This is the same MoF run by the former Premier, who was well known for bullying his wishes in existence, right? This is the same MoF which to the best of my knowledge doesn’t actually have any dedicated staff who are trained in and regularly exercise Due Diligence exercises, right? They read a few reports, run a few Google searches, and ask a few questions and thats it?
In light of the above, I think that WE the public deserve to know who this good Samaritan is so we can properly thank him/her/them. The WORLD deserves to know that we don’t just accept anonymous multi-million dollar donations without showing transparency and due diligence? and our LEADERS deserve to know that the sheep are awake, and refuse to be led blindly anymore.
Quit messing around and reveal the donor. Enough smoke screening. Is it Jarecky? Is it Johnson? Is it Branson? Is it Mohammed? Is it Hezbollah? WHO is it?
” the ministry of finance did the process that is usually done” Is this supposed to give us confidence???
So in the interest of transparency, perhaps best to return the funds, so there can be no questions later…
Are they accepting donations from the incarcerated now because if that is the case that should be frowned upon
just say it is one way they trying to hide their drug money from the COI.
The reason why the person name is kept anonymous is because when they get a political favor in return we wont know
I can’t figure this one out. How can a donation to a public project be private and the identity of the donor unknown?