Gov’t receives new heavy equipment vehicles
The new heavy equipment vehicles. (Photo provided)
PRESS RELEASE: The Government of the Virgin Islands has received seven new heavy equipment vehicles in addition to six pickup trucks from the Department for International Development (DFID), United Kingdom (UK).
At a brief handing over ceremony on April 24, His Excellency the Governor, Augustus Jaspert thanked the United Kingdom for its continued support towards the Territory’s recovery including security, rebuilding infrastructure and disaster preparedness.
The Governor said, “There has been huge support and today is about support to the Public Works Department and another gift from UK taxpayers to the BVI with a range of trucks and equipment to help clear debris, to help support sewerage and to help across the islands in support of our recovery.”
The Governor presented the keys to the vehicles to Premier and Minister of Finance, Dr. the Honourable D Orlando Smith, OBE who then handed them over to the Minister for Communications and Works, Honourable Mark Vanterpool.
Premier Smith also thanked the UK for their contribution.
He said, “The vehicles will help greatly to put more capability and capacity within the Public Works Department to do what they have to do in terms of cleaning the road and cleaning the ghuts, etcetera which is important that we prepare for another hurricane season.”
Meanwhile, Minister Vanterpool said that the equipment will be put to use to help push the recovery efforts forward and will be used on each island.
He said: “We are pleased that we have received two 20-yard trucks which will be used by the Public Works Department (PWD); three backhoes – one to PWD Tortola that will be available for sister islands, one to PWD Virgin Gorda and one to the Water and Sewerage Department (WSD); two five-yard trucks – one to PWD Virgin Gorda and one to WSD. We also have six brand new pickup trucks that will be used by the various departments.”
The Government of the Virgin Islands is continuing its work to recover the British Virgin Islands by rebuilding stronger, smarter, greener, better.
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Wow! A grand ribbon cutting over receipt of a few pieces of construction equipment from the UK. Ok. We wished that the UK, our Mother country, had given us £300M + instead of just co-signing for a £300M loan. Clearly, the UK lacks confidence in how we managed our financial resources. Consequently, to access the £300M co-sign loan, the UK demanded that an Agency outside of government must be established to manage any funds and projects associated with the co-signed loan. Is the Agency an alternative government? Is it usurping the roles and responsibilities of the Premier, MoF?
Anyway, the UK taxpayers (the taxpayers are probably not thrilled about sending their money out to the colonies) has made a generous donation of equipment valued about $1M to the people of the BVI. Let’s thank them and show our gratitude. To show our gratitude, the PWD Transportaion Divison should establish a strong maintenance programme and train mechanics to perform periodic maintenance and routine repair that will extend the equipment useful life, enhance reliability, lower operating cost, deliver high level quality customer service, maintain safe operations, use them for intended purpose……etc.
1 truck door done broke off and that paver that they just brought in is garbage
Really! They abuse stuff they don’t buy. I doubt anyone at PWD knows what dTo do with those equipment. They retired so long ago.
UK govt buys American equipment instead of British. Just shows how dumb all govts are, not just this one.