“We all have persons looking to us for answers, and the pressure is great, but at the same time I am confident that as the Minister for Finance, that better days are ahead for the people of the Virgin Islands,” he said last Tuesday during a press conference.

However, he said, as it relates to a salary cut for government employees, “we are not in that direction as yet.”

Finding Creative Avenues

The Premier also said that his administration is trying to make sure that it does what is possible “within the law that is fair and creative to avoid us reaching to that point or to having to lay off persons.”

“Right now I am trying to make sure that not one single public officer loses their job. I have been accused of not approving new posts, but I told them if we continue to increase the recurrent of Government and have to pay more persons but it getting less money because of COVID-19 then we would have to make some decisions on who will stay,” he stated.

He remarked that only urgent posts would be filled and officers will be redeployed within the service.

The Premier added, “We are daily looking at the finances of the country, we are monitoring it as we say in our culture ‘like a hawk’ and I know we have a lot of work to do, but I am optimistic in terms of what’s ahead in terms of the revenues.”