Edmund Maduro expressed concerns about the cruise ship dock and racism in society. Photo: VINO/File.

In an exclusive interview with the Virgin Islands News Online, Maduro noted that it was his “profound belief that every business on the landward side must at least, be owned fifty-one percent by the people who are entitled to live and have businesses” in the area. 

He added that he believed that the “cruise ships must restrict themselves to the business on board the cruise ship and leave the business on the landside to us, the people of the British Virgin Islands”. 

Maduro also said he believed racial tensions were rising in the Virgin Islands and this too was significantly troubling.  He noted that this reared its ugly head especially on talk shows and in blogs in the media. 

He confessed that “racism has in one way or the other [always] existed within the BVI”, sadly he admitted, “there is a trace of it still here, but we as a civilised and modern people must understand [that] all men are created equal and all of us have the human rights that anyone [else] has, and we cannot as a tourist-oriented country allow this thing to rise up among us again”.  

“Some of them are pushing this racial thing... that is why people would always hear me say on my show, I don’t care whether you’re red, black, white, blue, salmon, yellow or green!”. When it comes to racism Maduro said “we have to keep it tuned down, we don’t want it at all.” 

The Talk Show host furher noted that he would like to see government pay more attention to the development of the cruise ship dock in addition to the good development of relationships between all races and people here as they were “very important to our future”.

The expansion of the current cruiseship dock in Road Town has been high on the agenda for the Territory for some time now and involves a 3-phase project to develop the cruise ship pier and land side to be completed over a 3-year period. The first phase will include the extension of the Cruise Ship Pier, which is to be lengthened and widened; the second phase will be the development of the land side; and the third phase will be improvements to Road Town for improved residents and visitors experience.