Media personality, Cindy Rosan, has shot back at critics over questions she directed towards Premier Dr Natalio Wheatley at a recent press conference.
Rosan requested information about recent government hires — some of whom are expatriates — and asked Premier Wheatley to address allegations of inappropriate relations with two of them.
Premier Wheatley, after responding to some of the questions, said Rosan’s last question about the allegations was inappropriate and suggested the question was based on ‘reckless rumours’.
However, the Premier has thus far not categorically denied having any inappropriate relations with any of the persons mentioned.
While appearing in a social media video yesterday, Rosan suggested that she was contacted about her line of questioning to the Premier and chided for being out of line.
But Rosan defended her questions, arguing that they were par for the course and said it should be expected of journalists who seek to hold elected officials accountable.
“My question to the Premier was not personal, it was about our office, and if you are using our office for favours,” Rosan said.
“There is nothing inappropriate about my question,” she continued. “There is no time and place for such a question. Given all that we have gone through, especially again in the last year, we have to hold the pride of the BVI up high and we have to be able to question those that we have put in leadership comfortably.”
In the meantime, the Rosan also suggested that some of the criticisms may have come from the fact that persons did not have the full context of her line of questioning and were based on ’sound bites’ and short video clips of her exchange with the Premier instead.
“A video was shared with my last question to the Premier, and it gave off the effect or the misrepresentation that I, just out of the blue, asked the Premier about his personal life,” Rosan said.
Rosan argued that even though she does not care about the Premier’s personal life, Premier Wheatley sits in an official capacity and residents should be concerned about everything that he does both in the professional and personal aspects of his life and how these actions ultimately reflect on the territory.
She said her questions about the government hires to the Premier at a previous press conference and her subsequent queries to the Government Information Services (GIS) staff, Governor’s Office and government HR department were unfruitful and she was ‘ignored’.