We need a number! COI costs concern Opposition Leader
Opposition Leader Ronnie Skelton has called on the government to attach a dollar figure to the cost of the implementation of the Commission of Inquiry (COI) governance reforms that are currently being carried out.
Skelton, who is expected to question Premier Dr Natalio Wheatley on the issue at a later stage of the House of Assembly (HOA), described the spending allocated in the Schedule of Additional Provisions (SAP) in the House as yet another runaway train.
He said funding for those recommendations appeared in previous SAPs and said the government has questions they must answer in relation to this. “Somebody needs to say what is the cost.. [what it] is going to cost the country to implement and pay for some of this stuff,” Skelton told lawmakers in the House recently.
He added: “Somebody needs to come up with some number. What I’m hearing in the committee stage [of the HOA] is that the person responsible for it is just, you know, basically, wringing the Premier’s hand, wringing the Minister of Finance’s hand to make sure he gets what he needs to implement the thing.”
The Opposition Leader said the COI should have never happened and argued that 90 per cent of the things in the report that came from the COI needed to be implemented.
This is not the first call for such a figure to be shared publicly and the Premier previously promised, in response to those calls, to disclose what the reforms have been costing the people of the territory.
In October last year, Premier Wheatley disclosed that just under one million dollars had been spent to implement the reforms that had been agreed to by the government. At the time, he said over 90 per cent of the reforms were either completed or in progress.
The Premier had previously lamented that funding the COI’s reforms was challenging for the BVI government as funding was not in the territory’s budget last year.
Governor John Rankin previously commented that the United Kingdom will give ‘positive’ consideration to offering support to the territory; particularly in the area of technical expertise, advice, and general support.
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These Politicians crimes bigger than mine, they should be up here with me, instead of talking Pissed. They should just keep their mouth shut and enjoy the freedom they don’t deserved. Thanks to the Gov.
of implementing CoI recommendations is irrelevant to the cost of the widespread fiscal corruption in the BVI government in the last 50 years.
Speaking of runaway trains, let’s talk about NHI shall we COI costs pales in comparison. I could see the benefits of the COI but now tell me who NHI really benefits.
We also need numbers. Number of COI recommendations still not implemented an even bigger concern of BVI public.
How much has the graft and corruption already cost us. Sometimes you got to spend a little to save a LOT.
(how much do the RDA ‘friends and family’ awards cost the people, I wonder?)
Absolutely correct why question the cost of doing the proper thing? The real question is what has been spent doing the wrong thing!
It is around 7 million Ronnie.
Ronnie, you are correct. Anybody with any slight knowledge of policy development would understand that it is important to establish costs to determine what solutions may realistically work best based on actual available funds and what matters should take priority over others (therefore where should more funds justifiably be allocated). Lyrical ignorance running rampant in this country. Not their fault. Some are teachable.