Premier and Minister of Finance, Honourable Andrew A. Fahie said providing security to ensure returning Virgin Islanders, Belongers, Permanent Residents and Naturalised Citizens remain at their designated quarantine facilities is a better option than going through another shut down of the Virgin Islands’ economy if another wave of the Novel Coronavirus surfaces.

He, however, said he wanted to be among the first to welcome those persons back home.

The first phase of the border reopening is to facilitate returning Virgin Islanders, Belongers, Permanent Residents and Naturalised Citizens from June 2 through 15, 2020.

“We are asking them not to go anywhere. I am asking all family members, “please let us not retard the progress that we have made,” he said while a guest on the ZBVI 780 AM 'Honestly Speaking' radio programme with host Claude O. Skelton-Cline on Tuesday, June 2, 2020.

Hon Fahie said, at the moment meetings are being had to ensure security is implemented to make sure persons remain indoors.

He continued: “Because we cannot afford to retard it, it is going to be too much money for us to shut back down our economy and to reboot the economy. It is cheaper to put the security around them [than] to have to pay for our economy to be rebooted after having to be shut down as a result of any kind of spread.”

People sacrificed

Premier Fahie then sought to remind persons that the people of the VI paid their dues.

“We spent a lot of our hard-earned tax money to be proactive. Remember that those of us here laboured through many curfew orders. We were angry at times, they were angry with the Premier, but I love them, and we did all of that to keep us safe right now. Thank God we have zero active confirmed cases of the coronavirus, and it is not by accident,” he remarked.

The Territory is now COVID-19 free but is still under a 7:00 pm to 5:00 am curfew.