“I want to remind the recipients of the various economic stimulus packages, that when they received the funds, they committed to providing statements to confirm how they utilized the funds provided and to provide data on the impact this funding support had on their ventures,” Premier and Minister for Finance Hon. Andrew Fahie said during a press conference on Wednesday, May 27.

He continued: “Please, do not delay in sending this information back to the ministries so that we can close off the paperwork and complete our reports to account for what you have done with the monies you have received.”

COVID-19 exposed flaws

In the meantime, the Premier pointed out that the ongoing health pandemic brought to bear the systematic defects of the territory.

“I must say, though, that COVID-19 exposed a number of flaws and weaknesses within our systems in the BVI, in particular certain areas of reporting and statistics. COVID-19 exposed that some aspects of the government’s records were not up to date or were not being kept up to date, and one area where this happened is the register mainly of the farmers and fishermen,” he stated.

He explained that the preliminary fact shows that “there were persons who were engaged in farming and fishing and for one reason or the other did not find themselves on the list at the ministry, and some of them have been farmers and fishermen for many, many years.”

He said through the stimulus; they now have the opportunity to have those listings updated.

“The objective is not to stir up any blame game or to point fingers at any public officers but to finally get it right. The objective is to take what we have learnt and to strengthen the systems because we need to build our resilience in a world that is going through economic shocks and catastrophic climate events,” he noted.