When his government first entered office in February 2019, the Premier reportedly asked for the resignation of board members while thanking them for their service.

The Commission of Inquiry (COI) subsequently learnt that this was in keeping with the Fahie-led administration’s policy that effectively required statutory board members be changed with each ruling administration.

At a recent press conference, Premier Fahie related that the board has not yet been reestablished and explained that his government was having challenges advertising for new members due to restrictions in existing legislation.

“We are trying to re-establish the board, even if it’s temporary,” the Premier said in response to a question about climate change fund management.

He added: “One of the things that we have done is to make sure to move forward until we will be able to advertise because we are trying to move towards advertising for boards as we have promised long before anyone even brought it up.”

“But one of the challenges we are seeing with that which we have to overcome is that a lot of the laws pose some challenges with the advertising and how you advertise certain membership,” he noted.

According to the Premier, the government cannot advertise all members of the boards since a section of the legislation provides that the Leader of the Opposition would be required to put forward their nominee.

“So you can’t dictate for the Leader of the Opposition to advertise,” Premier Fahie said “and then there are some specifics in terms of some of the boards that we recognise that we have to change some of the legislation to be able to accommodate the full advertising of the boards as we would like.”

The Premier said his administration has been tweaking its policy as it goes along because it is not approved law or policy yet.

He also assured that some board vacancies will be filled temporarily before the new legislation can be implemented.