Commissioner of the Complaints Commission Mr Elton Georges has been asked to further extend his stay in the position. Photo: VINO

Mr. Elton Georges hosted a press conference today September 1, 2014, to introduce the fifth annual report, the report for 2013, which was to have been laid on the Table of the House of Assembly tomorrow September 2, 2014. Photo: VINO

This was related to reporters today September 1, 2014 as Mr. Georges hosted a press conference on the occasion of the Complaint Commission’s fifth anniversary. He related that he was previously asked to hold the position until the end of August 2014 but this request was subsequently extended to November 2014.

Mr Georges was appointed Chairman of the Commission in February 2009.

Asked if he had any idea what might have been the holdup resulting in the request of him to extend his stay, Mr. Georges said that the process of shortlisting applicants was delayed and only completed in July 2014.

He said that he was aware of the person that is under the microscope for the Government side but not sure who is the person of the Opposition’s preference. “I don’t think that I am at liberty to tell you who that person is but the Governor might be able to tell you if he is willing to,” said Mr. Georges.

He further explained that while there have been possibly two persons shortlisted the Governor’s office is now to fulfill the phase of consultation with the Government and the Opposition.

The main purpose of the press conference was for Mr Georges to introduce the fifth annual report, the report for 2013, which was to have been laid on the Table of the House of Assembly tomorrow September 2, 2014. That sitting was however postponed after it was challenged by the Opposition.

The Complaints Commission is for everyone who has a genuine grievance with a Government Department or other agency. It was the vision of the then governor Mr David Pearey that the Office would have been one that aimed to improve the overall quality of public administration as officials come to learn, or rather, to be reminded, through investigations and the reports and recommendations that follow, of the standards that they should meet in their dealings with people. He had also said that in the BVI context, the creation of this position of Commissioner of Complaints Commission would raise standards of governance, administration and service provision in the Virgin Islands.

However, Mr Georges said that they have had spectacular failures,  “Our very first…investigation into the way in which millions of taxpayers’ dollars in electricity connection subsidies were disbursed over the years (report issued in early 2010) pointed out a set of glaring problems and recommended fixes for them. The faults included complete lack of transparency, arbitrary and at times capricious decisions on who gets how much, lack of responses or long delayed responses to applicants, broken promises, and so forth. Lack of response from the Ministry for Communications and Works led to it being the fourth special report to the House in early 2011. As far as I could determine when I recently inquired, nothing has changed; subsidies continue to be given to lucky few who hear about the programme and find favour in some way with the successive Ministers.”

He said that there has been fair success in having members of the public use the office, but not quite enough. “We have indications of a great number of justified complaints out there that don’t make it to us for various reasons. On the other hand, we are stretched nearly to capacity, because of the number of approaches in relation to the small staff. As to the House of Assembly, we have not received a single request for an investigation from any member,” he said.