Ministerial advisors will continue for new gov’t — Premier Wheatley
The establishment of ministerial political advisors — a controversial measure first introduced by former Premier Andrew Fahie to assist government members in executing their portfolios — is expected to remain in place under the new administration.
Premier Dr Natalio Wheatley indicated that under his administration, the post of ministerial advisors will not be disbanded and suggested that it should not be viewed by the public as anything extraordinary.
While responding to questions at a press briefing late last week, Dr Wheatley pointed out that the recently released Commission of Inquiry (COI) report found no issue with the new post and confirmed that special advisors will also continue in the Premier‘s office.
“In fact, the United Kingdom, their ministers have special advisors. It’s standard practice in the United Kingdom and we are going to continue to have special advisors to assist with the very strenuous work and [voluminous] work that exists in the Premier‘s Office and throughout government,” Dr Wheatley said.
When the post was first announced in July last year, the then-Premier, Fahie, faced significant public backlash over claims of unnecessary government spending and for stacking the administration with unnecessary consultants.
Back then, Fahie defended the new addition by contending that it would improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the government.
He said that expectations from ministers and junior ministers had increased significantly over the years and argued the resources that should be available to them had been allowed to be depleted.
Fahie said the public service had suffered institutional capacity issues as a result of that.
And according to the former Premier, the matter of ministerial advisors had been tossed around by governments for more than 20 years and had only been compounded since the addition of junior ministers in the Virgin Islands Constitution of 2007.
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If the Unity HOA members are retaining their ‘political advisers’ then the time is ripe to suspend the constitution and dissolve the HOA for the next 2 years.
Who are the current political advisors?
The relatives and cronies , as always.
Soo…business as usual then?
LOOKS LIKE THEY READING FROM THE SAME SCRIPT , ONLY DIFFERENT PLAYERS
Thanks to the UK the people always get the sh**ty end of the stick.
Same game different players
It doesn’t make sense to compare the BVI to the UK. The ministers in the UK work for 68+ million people… They have far more issues to deal with than the Ministers on these small and low-populated islands!
Let’s cut our budget & get rid of the advisors… And while at it, I honestly think we have too many being paid in the HOA – we could get by with seven or nine at the most!!
keeping club members on the payroll
Political Advisers MUST GO! They can advise on their personal wallets. Not on the People’s expense.
and having the brother of the premier as a political advisor (“envoy”?) to the premier smacks of conflict of interest, one would think
eh I WOULD AGREE THAT IT SMACKS OF POLITICAL BIAS AND A CONFLICT OF INTEREST, BUT THE YOUNG MAN HAS PROVEN HIS WORTH OVER AND OVER AGAIN…INTERNATIONALLY HE IS WELL RESPECTED AND DIPLOMATICS AROUND THE WORLD SEEK HIS INPUT ON A RANGE OF THINGS..SO SIMPLY PUT BVI IS VERY FORTUNATE TO HAVE HIM.
…crap.
And the mother of a minister too
Who the h**l elected you in???
We demand good government not you clowns
I don’t have a problem with advisors, but but this thing seems to be so bad that we need to clean house and start over.