Statutory Bodies like Ports Authority needs reining in—Opposition Leader
The Opposition Leader has again lambasted the way several such ‘statutory bodies’ conduct business in the Territory, saying the entities routinely conduct the “people’s business behind closed doors” and are “hiding as statutory bodies.”
Stripped
Hon Fahie was at the time engaging media operatives, during a press conference he venued at the Village Cay, Hotel and Marina on Wednesday, August 15, 2018.
Asked if he would support having the statutory bodies stripped of their autonomy to manage their affairs, the Opposition Leader responded in the negative, saying “no, I would now enhance their reporting to the public in a timely manner…You see nobody does what is expected, they only do what is inspected.”
He told media operatives these bodies/agencies “have come to realize that nobody inspects them other than their Minister and the Permanent Secretary.”
Lamenting the state of affairs, Hon Fahie noted that “most times the laws don’t even allow the minister to direct them for the most part.”
House of Assembly
The Opposition Leader observed that, “it has come to the point where they (statutory bodies) have become fully autonomous, that they are not reporting and you don’t know these things unless you go to the House of Assembly and ask a question, or if something great happens and then the Ministry who is responsible for the statutory body, holds an opening ceremony or something and you see all grand things.”
He noted however, “…you don’t hear a lot of what else has happened, so we are going to push for the resolutions of these statutory bodies to be made public except for areas that would cause security issues.”
Hon Fahie cited as a practical example, the BVI Ports Authority and the $40M cost over-runs on the Tortola Pier Park Project.
He pointed out that the projected had initially been billed by government to cost between $5oM and $55M and, “had we not gone to the House and continue to ask questions—which they were denied at first—we would know that the project was over-run by $40.”
Hon Fahie disclosed that this information had only been reported to the United Kingdom and not the people of the Virgin Islands.
Contracts
This obtained since the government at the time required the UK’s permission to borrow the money.
He identified too, the $2.1M that the Ports Authority had given out in contracts “that up to now we don’t know all these contracts…all we know is that the Minister said that the acting director of the ports gave out these without the permission of the board.”
The Opposition Leader identified a project for the Road Town Jetty, where the successful contractor had been one who did not even submit a tender for the project.
HLSCC
Hon Fahie pointed to the H. Lavity Soutt Community College (HLSCC) which is also run by a board as an autonomous agency with some oversight from the Ministry for Education and Culture.
He told media operatives “we already know about the confusion that (was) caused with the amount for the repairs for the college building.”
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15 Responses to “Statutory Bodies like Ports Authority needs reining in—Opposition Leader ”
Nonetheless, whether these service providers are statutory bodies or departments, the need closer oversight of their operations. Furthermore, some need to be reverted to departments.
Sloppy overpriced marketing campaigns, inability to present any sort of tourism direction for the industry, overpaid consultants, agencies and completely over staffed local and New York offices led by unethical, overpaid ‘leaders’ with ridiculous bonuses and allowances
We need an "Accuracy of Informatio" act as badly as The freedom of Information act.