A total of 22 persons are set to benefit from more than $400,000 worth of scholarships and grants which has been approved by the Cabinet of the Virgin Islands.
This was revealed in a recent post-Cabinet statement which said the decisions were made on Wednesday November 3.
Of the 22 students, the release said that eight have been approved to be granted scholarships for the 2021/2022 academic school year, while 14 students will be provided financial assistance for educational grants.
According to the publication, the scholarship funding which totals $406,000 will be accessed by the Ministry of Education through the Miscellaneous Purposes Fund of the Financing and Money Service (Amendment), Act, 2022.
Premier and Minister of Finance Andrew Fahie did reveal in the recent 2022 Budget Address that tax revenues from the Money Transfer Fees for the year 2021, are estimated to total $2.315 million.
In an April 2020 sitting of the House of Assembly, Premier Fahie announced that the purpose for introducing this tax – which takes 7 percent from all monies sent overseas from the BVI via a money transfer agency (Western Union, MoneyGram etc.) – is to provide funding for various national development initiatives.
Educational programmes and the awarding of scholarships were among the listed initiatives to benefit from this tax which is enabled through the Financing & Money Services (Amendment) Act 2020.