Premier Andrew Fahie, while reiterating that his government does not have anything against the recently concluded Commission of Inquiry (COI), said he believes they should have delved more deeply into the issues within the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force as done with many of the other government entities.
Premier Fahie made the statement in a recent media conference as he responded to questions posed by local media on a number of topical issues.
He said similar to how the COI took apart entities such as Customs and Immigration, they should have done the same to the local police force instead of allowing them to police themselves with several of their internal issues.
“No, the Commission of Inquiry didn’t dive enough into the police and I say that very clearly. They delved into Customs, they dealt with everything else, but the police were allowed to police themselves and this is nothing against the entity of police, that’s just what I saw. But I won’t get no further into that, I will wait to see what the recommendations are and we’re going to defend the name of the Virgin Islands with all that we have,” Premier Fahie stated.
He added, “We want to make sure that nothing is done to retard the political advancement and the Constitutional advancement that are fore parents have given unto us.”
We don’t have anything against the COI
Premier Fahie also made it clear that his government’s only issue with the COI is the manner in how it was administered, stating that his government does not have anything against the overall purpose of a COI.
He said he will be awaiting the official report following investigations, to see whether it will attempt to retard the progress that the BVI has made politically to date.
“As a government we acknowledge there are areas for improvement but that is every government in the world and I stated that before that we really don’t have anything against the Commission of Inquiry at all, and persons try to make it sound that way. We are concerned about the way that it was administered. We are concerned that the Commission of Inquiry isn’t something that you just spring up on. So, the respect of being duly informed or even if signs were seen and you are told there are other methods like section 56 of 5F – I think it is of the Constitution like I stated before – that could have been used,” he said.
“So, the question would be, you know, was it something in someone’s mind and they wanted to make sure that they carried it out and try to brand the country in a certain way, despite there are areas that need improving, so that they can achieve a more ultimate goal. Those are things that we have, questioned out loud and we’ll have to wait until the reports to see,” he further explained.
We’ll challenge those recommendations that are questionable
The leader of government business also said that he is willing to accept the recommendations once they are targeted at improving some of the existing issues.
He said for those areas which his government is concerned about, they will be exercising their democratic right to challenge those recommendations which they may deem questionable.
“I am not going to preempt the report. I’m sure that it’ll list some areas that we need to improve upon and we’ll accept those. And if they list other areas that we are concerned about, then this is the 21st century, we have Democratic rights as a people and as a government and I don’t think that no one should bully us or make us feel intimidated that we cannot exercise them,” he stated.