Speaking on the forum, “A Response” hosted by the Community Worship Centre Church of God of Prophecy in Long Look on March 12, 2023, Mr Wheatley said if elected he would be pushing to change that.

‘Banks & trust companies did nothing to help VI’- Wheatley

“These are the things that really bother me. It bothers me because you have like banks here making 25 million dollars in profit, profit you know, not revenue, profit, and not one bank, not one trust company, could do what those people did in Virgin Gorda.”

The Eighth District candidate, who will be coming up against incumbent representative Hon Marlon A. Penn, said he had observed how wealthy investors on Virgin Gorda willingly spent massive amounts of monies to assist persons on Virgin Gorda to repair their homes following the hurricanes of September 2017; however, this was not the case on Tortola.

Mr Wheatley said electricity was swiftly restored for financial services to keep going, “but when you look at the schools, the rest of the BVI, look how long it took us to get Elmore Stoutt school back up.

‘I going to come gunning’

“I can’t understand that. How the millionaires up in Virgin Gorda could see fit in a community that the live in, could put back when he saw the need and businesses here [on Tortola] making millions and billions of dollars and watched us suffer and didn’t even care enough to fix a school.

Mr Wheatley said it was local businessman Peter Haycraft, the former owner of Road Town Wholesale Limited, who rebuilt Enis Adams Primary School at Meyers Estate, following its destruction in the hurricanes of September 2017.

“I say that to say that when you start to look at these things about what we are going to do in this country, we have to seriously take stock of how the corporate businesses, and I am not talking about local businesses, I am talking specifically about financial services, and I probably going to offend some people, but I have told a lot of people in the industry already, I going [to] come gunning, I ain’t joking about it. If I get a chance, they are going to make a more substantial contribution to this country. They have been making millions of dollars year after year and they do nothing,” the former Financial Secretary said to loud applause.

Mr Wheatley said the money from corporate entities doesn’t even have to come into the Government coffers, rather the example of Haycraft could be used...”to keep the government out of the confusion.”

Mr Haycraft, now deceased, took it upon himself to do the various hirings and expenditure for the rebuilding of Enis Adams Primary School.