Gov’t accepts $400K in insurance for BVI Fishing Complex. Photo: VINO/File

The damages caused by Hurricane Irma.

This, according to a government missive on November 23, 2018, last, publicizing the ‘Cabinet Decisions’ taken, on November 8, 2018.

The payment comes more than a year after the storms wreaked havoc in the Territory, damaging the complex in the process and leading government to lay claim for insurance payments.

The Cabinet—chaired by Governor Augustus J.U. Jaspert—decided too that the Ministry of Finance, headed by Premier Dr the Honourable D, Orlando Smith, “would instruct the Attorney General’s Chambers to vet the release for full and final settlement. “

Only recently political hopeful, Mr Hipolito D. Penn had lamented the state of affairs with the Fishing Complex and had blamed the lapses on District Representative, Deputy Premier, Dr the Honourable Kedrick D Pickering (R7).

Mr Penn—who will be contesting in the upcoming Virgin Islands (VI) General Elections, for a seat in the House of Assembly (HoA) as the 7th District Representative—had said in a recent interview with Virgin Islands News online, “our fishery is in shambles and non functional, our local fishermen losing daily in their own country, another area the current Representative of the 7th  District have failed his people.”