LETTER: BVI needs a Fiscal Control Board, one person can’t be all-powerful
Dear Editor,
Many years ago, the Apostle Paul wrote to his young friend in 1 Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows,” (KJV).
There is a lot of truth to Paul’s statement, especially when the love of money is combined with greed, plus a certain amount of pride and the necessary decision-making power and control to determine unilaterally how the money is spent.
Regarding the ambition for and the abuse of power, there is also a lot of truth to the popular saying “absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
Add to those truths the feelings of entitlement engendered from the pride of having been born and remaining resident in the beautiful BVI, despite the hardships. Then consider having laboured with much sacrifice for 20 years or more for a particular cause — such as toward the betterment of the country and its people for a meagre and unsatisfying salary — and you have the perfect setting for losing faith and yielding to temptations that could lead to corruption and the consequential sorrows that Paul is referring to.
Under similar circumstances, the same outcome that has recently occurred at the governmental level could occur in the case of unilateral management of the assets of an institution, a ministry, a department, an agency, a business enterprise and even a church, or any other corporate body. The propensity for wrongdoing in such cases increases over an extended period of time.
Sometimes the feelings of self-sacrifice, entitlement, frustration and the perceived ungratefulness of the beneficiaries of the service rendered are so great (and the anxiety for a supposedly well-earned payback is so urgent) that the said individual Assets Manager could become blind to wrongdoing to the point of considering himself or herself completely innocent under any circumstance.
If there are other complications or commitments involved, the said person may even be willing to take risks to satisfy his/her immediate needs, which may or may not result in getting caught in illegal action.
So what are the lessons to be learnt from the foregoing truths and possible scenarios?
One person shouldn’t have unilateral control of public assets
1) Based on the mismanagement of public funds in the past, the management of public assets in general (especially liquid assets) should never be placed in the hands of a particular individual with absolute decision-making power and control. This is to safeguard against that individual falling into the temptation of wrongdoing or corruption. Those duties and responsibilities should perhaps be handled separately and be subjected to strict bilateral control and oversight. That principle would advise against having the Premier exercise or assume the dual function of Premier and Financial Secretary.
2) No individual manager of public assets or of assets owned in common by a particular group of persons should be allowed to have absolute power and control over the management of the said assets for an extended period of time without frequent and effective oversight by a higher fiscal body. Implementation of that principle could minimise the tendency to gradually develop naturally occurring feelings of entitlement that could surreptitiously lead to a lack of transparency, mismanagement and/or corruption.
Had such common-sense principles been put in place in the past, trillions of dollars that have become available to different administrations for public use in the last two decades alone would have been invested in providing the BVI with the first-class infrastructure that we should have had by now. Instead, investments for improvements to our roadways, water system, electric power system, sanitary sewer system, communications system (including the internet) etc., have all been sacrificed in exchange for satisfying other less important needs; for wasteful spending on vote-getting projects and on unnecessary travel expenses and legal fees, as well as for some unknown causes.
Despite the findings of the COI report, let us assume that some type of local government established through the election process would eventually prevail over the COI-recommended direct UK rule. Under that assumption, it is very likely that stringent corrective actions would still be required by the UK government, possibly consisting of oversight measures that would be both necessary and advisable. Such constraints and probable power-sharing efforts designed to improve governance while avoiding pitfalls of the past would also seek to minimise local governmental corruption.
An alternative to UK direct rule; a Fiscal Control Board
And since financial management has been the main catalyst for poor governance and wasteful spending in the past — involving perhaps a few designated Financial Secretaries with varying degrees of decision-making power and control — most likely, the focus would be on providing tangible improvements in that area. By way of corrective action, an alternative to UK direct rule could be to establish a Local Fiscal Control Board that would have responsibility for the management of our multi-million dollar yearly budget, with UK government oversight. The members of the said Board would be appointed by the local and UK governments.
Although this alternative fiscal management measure might not be a panacea for the assurance of good governance and in particular for completely avoiding local governmental corruption, it could be helpful for controlling it to a certain degree. The truth is that in places where this fiscal control mechanism has been used in an admittedly beneficial manner to the served population, corruption at a lower level has still occurred. Additionally, some amount of occasional friction has occurred between the Board and the local government due to differences of opinion on procedural and budgetary matters.
However, as an alternative to direct UK rule, which would be a lot worse in terms of the lasting hurt it would cause especially to image of the BVI, as well as to the short and long-term negative effects it would have on the local economy, it may be worth the while to give that fiscal control mechanism a try.
In the final analysis, a shared government would be much better for the country than having a partially suspended constitution and no local self-government at all. This could happen if the UK government becomes adamant about imposing its sovereign will by direct rule over the will of the majority of the people of the BVI in fulfilment of the recommendation of the COI Report.
Should the will of the majority of the people of the BVI — as expressed in new and fair elections — favour the continuation of the status quo, then shared government for a period to be mutually agreed upon could represent a win-win situation for both sides; hopefully completely discarding even the idea of direct UK rule.
Yours sincerely,
A Concerned Citizen
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one of AF cronies I know.
We need some people with experience to design us a system that is made to control the problems that inevitably rise in governing a small community.
I suspect we need something a bit more than another committee of the ruling elite.
Anonymous letters have no credibility. Why is this person too cowardly to sign their name?
Aren’t you being hypocritical? After all you are posting as “Secret Bear”.
In other words you are as anonymous as the letter writer. In that case, their words is as “cowardly” and without credibility as yours. Don’t you think?
I can understand the letter writer not wanting to write their names on such a letter for the same practical reasons we all post anonymously.
If it’s not credible in your opinion, just keep it moving Secret Bear.
Speaking of Secret Bear, that’s a bit suspect of a title. Just saying. You might want to change that handle. It’s suggest something you many not have intended.
I am writing comments; I am not writing a letter to the editor and expecting BVI News to publish it anonymously. My criticism is directed more toward this “news” site for lacking any discernible journalistic credibility.
I also assume you are implying I am a “bear” in the alternative-lifestyle sense, which is hilarious since I am female.
Anonymous letters are written all the time in these neck of the woods. Nothing new Secret Bear.
Now, you said that your “criticism is directed more toward this “news” site for lacking any discernible journalistic credibility.”
I’m not here to defend bvinews, but the same site that you believe has no journalistic credibility in publishing the letter is allowing you to express your views. So fair is fair.
Now, last time I checked women can have alternative lifestyles as well, but carry on. 🙂
By the way, I read your post all the time. I often agree with your views despite your post here today.
…And also even discarding the idea of Independence…for any time soon.
If one feels this way they should not go into Government. This is not an excuse for wrong doing. Most of us would like to make a little more money and be treated better at work, but most of us don’t resort to this behavior.
This is a good idea and perhaps a long term solution but it involves sweeping Constitutional reform. And most importantly, we lack confidence in finding the qualified personal to operate this today. We are a community the size of a small city in the US or UK. Our current generation of leaders failed to develop a long term plan for our community. They pursued large capital expenditure projects that appeared to benefit them our their constituents.
What we need to start is a long term plan that our community understands and supports. We need a new generation of leaders to step forward in helping to design this plan. But the process of doing this necessitates the active role of the UK to not only help us build the framework for creating the plan but to actively root out and prosecute those who took advantage of us for so many years.
There are different forms of governance that we should consider adopting. We certainly don’t need to ever again refer to our head of state as Premier. He/she is just an administrator of a community of 30,000 residents. They don’t need fancy new cars and foreign bodyguards. Our future leaders should be judged based in community established Key Performance Indicators.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Let’s create a long term plan and recruit some new pieces to rebuild our paradise. Good riddance to the shameful narco state.
Start with the simple one, the Premier cannot also be the Minister of Finance…..
The US President cannot spend without congress approval. As the comment above said the Premier should not be also the Minister of Finance.
We need check and balances. A Firewall. Fiscal Control.
BTW, Concerned Citizen you left out SCHOOLS.
We have an Auditor General, but the CoI showed that that person was summarily ignored. Strengthen that position, add in some measures to compel compliance.
Absolutely
Cockroaches are short on memory, give the job to a set of scamps and in time they will all be at Balo blaming each other.
NO OFFENSE , SO U R A FEMALE , HOW WONDERFUL ) DON’T THEY HAVE FEMALE BEARS ? ❓ ( TEDDY COMES TO MIND LOL
Oversight fiscal board is not necessarily the answer. It is usually too late by the time oversight boards discover issues.
Staff up the Auditor General’s office to include hiring forensic accountants, lawyers, and investigators/inspector generals (respect this office as an independent body through enforcement) who are impowered to refer cases to the attorney general for prosecution. That is your INDEPENDENT OVERSIGHT rather than another useless board and cushy jobs for recycled people. If you don’t have an office of Ethics implement one that among other things would be responsible for enforcement of financial disclosures for all political officials and all civilians in management and certain non management positions. This ethics office would report directly to the Lt. Governor/Governor’s office and would subjected to annual compliance audits by the auditor general’s office. I would love to help make a difference in the BVI but my approach would be viewed as heavy handed and no nonsense…which in reality is what is necessary at this point in time. Your auditor general wasn’t always 100% correct in every position she took (I read some of her reports and I don’t have a dog in this fight) but it’s difficult to challenge her office’s position when the issues she identified were so egregious and willful on all political leaders and some civil servants’ part, that it would have been a herculean lift to challenge her given the climate to the point where she became the heroine in her own rights due to local leaders and some civil servants arrogance, naivete’, loss of credibility, and just sheer stupidity.
The reality is no political party or group has ever taken a holistic view of the BVI and developed a comprehensive Plan for the development of the BVI. We need five year, 10 year and a 15 hear development plan for the BVI with clearly defined goals and strategies to achieve those goals. What we have gotten is a bunch of adhocs thrown together, who once elected lumber form year to year by engaging in vote getting projects that tickles the fancy of the voters for the next election. Key areas to consider are, water and sewage, Healthcare, education, The road network, agriculture and fisheries, The economy, Tourism, IBCs, electricity and alternative power supply, internet and communication, and alternative revenue streams and industries.
Dislike is in errror. Thumb too large. I agree with you 100%.
Your heart is in the right place. Checks and balances. Agreed.
UK take over should not be seen as a threat, instead an opportunity. An opportunity to cleanse and build stronger.
We don’t need anymore Boards. As a matter a fact we need to reduce the AMT of boards we have, all we need is honest and responsible people in top positions. In all positions…
no matter how many of them you put all of locals are corrupts!!! we need uk closed to them!!
Whoever holds Finance is the most powerful