‘Decision March’ confirms resident expertise to rebuild unified VI
This is the view held by Senior Pastor of the Cane Garden Bay Baptist Church, Reverend Dr Melvin A. Turnbull, who in advancing the argument to Virgin Islanders, issued a public statement on June 13, 2018, saying “…we are the power brokers.”
According to Dr Turnbull, now more than ever, “we must draw on the genius of all the people of the VI and move forward collectively as a community, one BVI, One Territory, One People.”
One Vision, Not Division
Now is not the time to panic, he said, adding that Virgin Islanders must focus on building a VI with ‘one vision, not division.’
He said, though several groups and organizations are planning, “we must be clear as to what we want the new BVI to look like in the short term, medium term and long term….we must resist the paralysing drug of procrastination and move forward with a sense of urgency.”
5,000 Virgin Islanders
The Cane Garden Bay’s Senior Pastor’s clarion call, comes against the backdrop of the ‘Decision March’ in May, where close to 5,000 Virgin Islanders took to the streets of Road Town, Tortola, to protest a decision by the United Kingdom government, imposing public registers of beneficial ownership be established by 2020.
The subsequent procession—the largest in the territory’s history—had moved off from the ‘Sunday Morning Well’ to the Governor’s Office in the Capital City, after which a petition with 3,000 signatures affixed, was handed over to the UK Resident Representative objecting to the public registers and its implications.
The ‘Decision March’ organising committee has since established an Economic Advisory Group (EAG) comprising Chairman John I. Cline and is aimed at supporting the VI’s government negotiations and overtures in order to avert the 2020 obligation imposed by the UK.
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