Mr George was the time contributing to the first community dialogue on the implementation of the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry Report on Monday, June 20, 2022, at Elmore Stott High School tent.

Stop giving Belongship ‘period’- George

“We need to just stop having Cabinet give Belongership to anybody period. That’s my opinion, we could put it out to a vote and see how everybody feels because we can’t have Passport Office doing one thing, Immigration doing another thing, it’s causing a big confusion right about now and, for the transparency purpose, just give the people them residency. It isn’t going to harm them.”

George further said that if a person was not born in the territory or isn’t married to someone from the territory, “The law done speak to who a Virgin Islander is. Everybody may feel a way about it, but we aren’t America, we aren’t them places. We have a limited amount of resources here and you just can’t be giving it out like that because right now when are we going to stop?”

The political aspirant added that granting of Belonger status will one day put locals at a serious disadvantage, as they will have to compete with Belongers.

“We don’t have a timetable of when we are going to stop, people coming into the BVI every single day. For the next 20 years from now, when my child comes out of school, they have to be competing with somebody who just been here for 20 years and they got the opportunity to purchase land, if I don’t have the opportunity to help she to purchase land. It’s a ticklish situation so that’s my opinion on it. Let’s just stop the whole confusion.”

The first in a series of meetings to discuss the implementation of the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry Report was held on Monday, June 20, 2022, at Elmore Stott High School tent.

Opportunity to ventilate matter will come- Premier

Premier and Minister of Finance Dr the Honourable Natalio D. Wheatley (R7) responded that the issue is one that can be properly and objectively ventilated at the end of June 2022 when a finalised constitutional review committee will be in place and will allow for persons’ views to be heard in the Constitutional Review process.

He added, “of course, I know persons have different views but I think we should not tear ourselves apart based on our views, because in any democratic society we have persons who have different views and it doesn’t mean that we have to be at each other’s throat if we don’t agree on every particular matter.”