The Norwegian Gem is scheduled to call in Tortola on Oct. 7 carrying as many as 3,130 passengers, but the government still hasn’t unveiled the details of the protocols they will have to follow. A promised announcement explaining “cruise bubbles” hasn’t come yet, but the...
September 18, 2021
September 18, 2021
Fahie grilled over board shake-ups
The Premier’s Office — which currently oversees 11 statutory bodies — chose board members through an informal process that typically didn’t employ vacancy announcements, interviews, background checks, or conflict-of-interest reviews, according to testimony over the past week in the Commission of Inquiry. While questioning Premier...
September 17, 2021
Government blasted for ‘massive’ response on Covid grants
Though representatives for the Attorney General’s Chambers have repeatedly complained that the government lacks the time and resources to keep up with information requests from the Commission of Inquiry, Commissioner Sir Gary Hickinbottom berated them last week for submitting a nearly 1,000-page document that he...
September 17, 2021
COI probes SSB appointment process
The board of directors for the Social Security Board was mostly empty for about five months in early 2020, but leaders couldn’t offer a clear explanation for that fact last week while responding to criticisms about a lack of transparency in appointing candidates to statutory...
September 17, 2021
Joint Task Force seizes 40 kilos of coke from animal feed shipment at Port Purcell
Port Purcell operations were temporarily suspended Monday after Joint Task Force officers seized 40 kilograms of suspected cocaine hidden amongst animal feed, JTF Chairman Wade Smith said Wednesday. Though no arrests had been made in relation to the seizure, officers in the “joint intelligence unit”...
September 17, 2021
Premier signs $411,000 CCTV contract
Last Thursday, Premier Andrew Fahie signed a $411,000 contract with FLOW to restore the CCTV system that was destroyed during the hurricanes of 2017, Police Information Officer Diane Drayton announced on Friday. Project funds obtained from the Caribbean Development Bank were matched by “capital expenditures”...
September 13, 2021
Report: EU banks reap billions from VI, others
A new report from the European Union Tax Observatory suggests that European banks are reaping about 14 percent of their total profits — about 20 billion euros a year — from the Virgin Islands and 16 other jurisdictions the report identified as “tax havens.” The...
September 10, 2021
Students head back to class
After about a year and a half of remote learning due to the pandemic, most public school students headed back to their classrooms on Monday. But health issues besides Covid-19 persisted, causing at least one school to remain closed. The Francis Lettsome Primary School in...
September 10, 2021
Speakers withdraw injunction request
Speaker of the House Julian Willock and Deputy Speaker Neville Smith have withdrawn their request for an injunction to prevent three Commission of Inquiry lawyers from working in the territory until the conclusion of a court case scheduled to start in October, according to the...
September 10, 2021
Cruise shippers can skip arrival testing
As the territory continues to balance “lives and livelihoods,” health teams are managing 66 active Covid-19 cases and cruise ship passengers soon will be al- lowed to enter the territory without rapid testing upon arrival, Premier Andrew Fahie said last Friday. The next cruise ship...
September 9, 2021
Climate fund has never benefited from eco-levy
Less than two months after the Virgin Islands Party came to power in the February 2019 general election, all six private-sector members of the Climate Change Trust Fund board received a letter from newly appointed Premier Andrew Fahie. “In keeping with our mandate, it is...
