Existing problems on sister islands should get fixed before giving them exclusive representation

Representative of the Second Electoral District, Melvin ‘Mitch’ Turnbull said he believes government needs to address the multitude of existing issues on the sister islands before contemplating whether to give each its own representative.

The suggestion of giving each sister island exclusive representation was raised in the House of Assembly back in July when discussions where being had about a constitutional review.

Responding to that suggestion during a subsequent media conference with members of the parliamentary Opposition recently, Turnbull — whose constituency includes Jost Van Dyke — said he is not against the idea.

However, he said he believes such a change would be used as an excuse to further delay resolving the existing problems.

“Let’s get Jost Van Dyke Primary School a proper school … Let’s deal with the roads. Let’s deal with the ferry terminal. Lets deal with the mountain road and all the flooding issues and the lack of water, and on top of it where you have an island that produces and is solely based on tourism. Let us stimulate the economy over there so that the people don’t have to come to Tortola for everything,” Turnbull said.

“Let us fix those things before you start. So, when you fix those things, we can have the conversation because … when they have a new representative, [they are going to tell Jost Van Dyke residents] you just come so you have to wait and learn and understand what is going on and then we would see what we can get done. It’s not going to happen,” he further argued