Beautiful Virgin Islands

Saturday, Oct 04, 2025

Suicides likely averted with COVID grant $$ to churches - Premier

Suicides likely averted with COVID grant $$ to churches - Premier

Premier Andrew Fahie has suggested that his government’s COVID-19 assistance grants given to religious organisations last year likely prevented suicides in the BVI.

During a hearing yesterday, the Premier told the Commission of Inquiry (COI) that churches dealt with a lot of counselling and prayers. He said these religious organisations took away much of what would have likely become social disasters — many of which the government could not have addressed.

“The churches have helped us significantly and I would do it again. The churches have touched the lives of a lot of persons. Around that time, Commissioner, there were people, a lot of people, who were trying to commit suicide — they couldn’t deal with this,” Premier Fahie explained.

Highlighting another reason for offering grants to churches, Premier Fahie said: “The churches, some of them were on the verge of collapse, because they make their monies by the collection, by the offering. If it is closed, there is no offering and the people (church members) are not working because of COVID [so] they can’t give any tithes.”

According to Premier Fahie, during the early stages of the pandemic, churches were seeing financial challenges like never before.

He told the commission that the churches have been executing social programmes that assist with rent and food for persons in need, especially at a critical time where landlords had been pressuring tenants to produce their rent or be displaced.

A big change in policy, but a needed one


Fahie said that midway through the disbursement, he instituted a policy-shift in the way the monies were distributed to the churches. He said this was done through what he described as a ‘banded system’ that would allow churches to ‘touch more lives’ in a way the government never could.

He further dismissed any insinuation of political motivations behind the grants given to churches. The Premier argued that those who did not support his administration still received help in the same way as other institutions did.

Accountability


And while addressing the issue of accountability, Fahie said there is a system in place to “deal with that”. He, however, said this was not his “section”. Notably, while farmers and fisherfolk were requested to account for how they spent the grants, churches and schools were not required to do the same.

In the meantime, Premier Fahie urged the COI not to look at the change in procedures during the distribution of the grants to churches as a willy-nilly exercise, and instead to take a more holistic view of the dire circumstances that were happening at the time.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×