UK Loan Guarantee now a 'lost opportunity' for VI- Premier Wheatley
“The guarantee right now is not on the table, but it’s something that we can return to see if we can get it back on the table but we have essentially lost the opportunity to get the guarantee as of right now,” he said while speaking to the media during a one-on-one press conference on August 8, 2022.
“Whether we can get the opportunity again, it depends on us but for the loan that we are exploring, it won’t be big enough really to justify the guarantee, but we do have projects that we have to have a conversation about in the future,” he said while referencing the upcoming airport expansion project.
VI feared losing control of finances
Meanwhile, even as the opportunity for the loan is no longer available, one of the long-standing concerns of VI Governments was that the borrowing ceiling in the Protocol for Effective Financial Management needed to be adjusted, along with some of the terms attached regarding defaulting.
While legislators, including Hon Mark H. Vanterpool (R4) and Hon Marlon A. Penn (R8), had pushed for the then Andrew A. Fahie (R1) government to take up the loan guarantee offer, one of the biggest fears was that if the VI failed to repay its debt, it would ultimately lose control of its finances to the UK.
Speaking in the House of Assembly in December 2021 as then Deputy Premier under the Fahie administration, Dr Wheatley said, “We haven’t borrowed anything by this administration and that’s okay because we were executing the $65 million loan [From the Caribbean Development Bank] but we have a challenge as it pertains to the loan guarantee because of all of these conditions which were attached to this loan guarantee which are essentially unfavorable for us.”
Maintaining financial autonomy
At the time, he said it did not make sense for the VI to summarily dismiss its concerns about losing its financial autonomy because of a loan guarantee and the conditions attached to a loan guarantee.
“My grandfather who was the first Minister of Finance for this government back in 1978 or so, and we have a legacy of being in control of our own finances as we haven’t received any grant in aid from the UK in over 40 years. So we want to maintain control of our finances and we fought hard for that and that is something that is important to our progress as a people," Dr Wheatley added.
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20 Responses to “UK Loan Guarantee now a 'lost opportunity' for VI- Premier Wheatley ”
Interest rates was very low then and was supported by Britain meaning repayment was very affordable so what is the true reason for turning it down. Look at the state of the country today where is the billions coming from to repair the ageing infrastructure.
All schools in the bvi by now would have been expanded and new ones built, most roads and drainage repaired, Government services would have been upgraded to modern times, the government could have done so much if they really wanted it, I suspect there is more the past and present Premier are not saying. We the people may never know.
Instead of caring about humanity and caring about getting the best for your family and community, you are stuck on pretending that all humans and all their thoughts and value are defined by their skin color. They are not.
It is possible for white people to want the very best for black people. Most of us do, because most of us do not dehumanize other humans by seeing them as colors.
Sure, we understand the horrors and continuing impacts of colonialism and white privilege, but your argument that you would rather ‘your’ people suffer than allow anyone with low melanin content to be involved in making lives better, is strange, it is a self-destructive response that defeats it’s own fundamental goals, and of course it is racially divisive.
Question: as humans, how does increasing racial division help anyone in the black or any community get a better life?
You are projecting hundreds of years of history onto individuals and your righteousness, you believe, gives you permission to act with pure evil against anyone.
Think about that.