Fourth District Representative Honourable Mark Vanterpool wants to know who is truly running things in the British Virgin Islands.
Vanterpool took the House of Assembly to task during the last sitting while he debated on the subsequently discarded Register of Interest Act 2022.
He argued that the candidates looking to contest the next election are making it appear that they are awaiting a go ahead from the United Kingdom, when they are clearly instructed by the Constitution that said election is due in less than a year.
“We should be able to look forward to what happens, and by now it looks like people afraid to start campaigning eight months before. Everybody fighting and want to know what happened. We got a British Government rule? Run things?” he stated.
Vanterpool also called for greater attention to the wider region where CARICOM leaders, including prime ministers St Vincent and the Grenadines’ Dr Ralph Gonsalve and Barbados’ Mia Mottley, are actively speaking out against colonialism and taking the necessary actions in their countries.
All the while he says the BVI continues to navigate under the pressures of colonial rule and is being forced to ignore its more prominent issues.
“Don’t tell me that at this stage in our development, when in 1949 those marched… We fought for all our freedom… We fought for ministerial government in 1967… Don’t tell me we got a constitutional upgrade in that year in 2007 or whatever else to tell me now we must go back and say yes, the British Government rule” said Vanterpool.
The Member for the Fourth District thanked regional and international bodies who have been speaking in defense of the BVI, particularly in recent months, and called for greater involvement and support for the territory at this milestone in its history.