Locals should have been approached for cruise pier project - commentators
Commentator Cromwell Smith aka Edju En Ka said on the Umoja show last evening, October 24, 2013 that suggestions were made from the very beginning for a facility to be set up to have the cruise pier project funded by locals ‘so that we don’t have to depend on these people and then be between a rock and a hard place’.
Co-host Natalio Wheatley aka Sowande Uhuru said if this had been done, the Virgin Islands (VI) would have been in a much better place.
“It seems as though, to me, that one of the factors would be time, because we’re being pressured by the cruise industry to get this pier and this development,” Smith said.
Wheatley said locals wanted an alternative to invest their money as they were barely getting anything out of the banks. “The banks are making a killing here,” he noted, “they’re barely giving you anything on the money, so we need to invest that money.”
According to Wheatley, while this may not have been possible on an individual basis, locals could have been approached collectively to source funds for the project.
He also suggested alternatively, that there may be a fear among locals of losing their investment that might be a cultural phenomenon.
Smith said investors were not coming to the VI for altruistic reasons and added that they were not coming because they love the BVI and wanted to invest.
Wheatley offered that sometimes the territory’s leaders were somewhat gullible and Smith said he agreed that this was the case ‘a lot of times’. “People come and we’ve had experience with that, this is not the first experience,” Smith stated.
Consultants and snags
Smith also suggested that government may not be entirely to blame for the delays in the process as consultants, who are hired for their expertise, were also involved in the negotiation process.
“What always concerns me, and the same thing happened with the BiWater situation, is we have these experts and a lot of people think that the government goes off… the Minister, the Ports Director and the Permanent Secretary… just go off and start trying to negotiate these deals themselves,” Smith said.
He said there was a general feeling in the community that no expertise was involved and failure was solely on the part of the government and he was concerned that experts were still involved with all the snags that were apparent.
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13 Responses to “Locals should have been approached for cruise pier project - commentators”
That deal was the Telecom Liberalization Sham, The Beef Island Sell Off and the Bi-Water Sell Out all over again. We never learn. We always expect outside companies to come in here and represent our interests instead of their own corporate bank accounts. And then we're surprised later on when we discover that we've offered too much of future. How pathetic...