Penn says NDP still active, good work done

Health Minister Marlon Penn said his political organisation — the National Democratic Party (NDP) — remains active and he intends to lead the party as it campaigns for the upcoming general elections.

Penn expressed in a recent interview on ZBVI Radio that he never disbanded his connection to, or his allegiance with the NDP after joining the Government of National Unity (GNU) last year to help stave of the threat of a United Kingdom takeover on the territory.

“I’m very much a part of the organisation (the NDP). Our organisation is active and we’re going to field candidates in the general election,” the Eighth District Representative said.

He expressed that free and fair elections are a hallmark of any democracy and said the BVI has arrived at the point where it needed to have those elections.

We’ve done good work

In the meantime, Penn told the Talking Points show recently that he deserves re-election in his Eighth District constituency because he has shown commitment and has done good work in his community.

“We’ve done a lot of good work in the Eighth District over the years. We’ve been able to do a lot of good infrastructural work,” Penn stated. “I think we have some unfinished work that we need to continue, particularly the stadium that we started. I believe it’s still going to be very impactful as it relates to sports tourism in our territory.” 

According to Penn, the stadium project is now on the ‘final leg’ of the process with tenders now received for its construction. He hailed the project as being one of the first public-private partnerships in the territory, and said some seven to eight million dollars is expected to be injected into the venture.

With the stadium in place, Penn said a number of socio-economic opportunities can be expected both for the community and the territory at large.

“While we’ve made some progress, we still have a lot more work to be done,” Penn said “and we need to ensure that the sewerage and the road infrastructure is addressed in a significant way in that community.”