Get out of my country – Skelton to expat looters

By Davion Smith, BVI News Online Journalist

While noting that BVIslanders also participated in looting after hurricanes Irma and Maria, Minister of Health and Social Development Ronnie Skelton yesterday called for expats who looted to be booted from the British Virgin Islands.

He added that persons departing the territory should not be allowed to do so with valuables if they cannot provide receipts for them.

“You not leaving the country with anything unless you can prove where you get it from,” Skelton said during the first sitting of the House of Assembly since the category 5 hurricanes.

He claimed that he witnessed looting firsthand, adding that he accosted some of the offenders.

“There was one guy who was going in iSmart and I said ‘what are you doing?’ He came to me and said he was just peeping in to see if there was people in there. And then there was one who was walking across the road with a plate-set in his hand and I ask him ‘where did you get this from?’ He said he found it on the ground,” Skelton told the House.

He continued: “We need to find these people. There are pictures, and we need to get them out of our country… I understand there were even police officers doing this. There were a lot of person and I saw them.”

The government minister said looters who are being booted out of the territory should not ask for leniency.

In what appears to be a light-hearted comment, he also advised Leader of the Opposition Andrew Fahie against pleading for mercy on behalf of looters.

“If you know me and you’re my friend, just leave, because it makes no sense you come to me to help you to stay in my country after you did what you did. So, Leader of Opposition, don’t come to me for your friend if he was looting. It’s wrong and we need to stop it before the next hurricane hit us and the same thing happens it again,” Skelton said.