Entrepreneurs and other residents are suffering because the Virgin Islands’ civil service is slow, ineffective and unaccountable, Financial Services and Economic Development Junior Minister Lorna Smith told the House of Assembly last week.
To address the problem, Ms. Smith urged that oversight of the service be shifted from the governor to elected leaders.
Ms. Smith’s comments came during debate on the 2022-2023 Constitutional Review Commission Report, which sets out 57 recommendations for revising the 2007 Constitution.
“It is time to put the subject under a minister who has a better understanding of the needs of the people and a better appreciation of getting these things done promptly,” she said, adding, “Who knows the people of the BVI more than their elected representatives?”
She added that confusion often arises from the current system, under which the governor has constitutional oversight of the civil service but the elected government is responsible for directing the policy that guides it.
“The Bible itself is clear when it says you cannot serve God and mammon,” she said. “You cannot serve two masters at the same time. Public servants, they do their work, but to whom are they really accountable?”
In support of her position, Ms. Smith highlighted delays in granting trade licences and business approvals as matters of particular concern.
“We all experience slowness in getting approval, in getting licences of all types — whether they are non-belonger landholding licences, whether they are trade licences,” she said.
Such concerns, she added, are widespread across the territory. “I am having district meetings, and there isn’t one district where I have not got a complaint about the length of time it takes for a Virgin Islander to get a trade licence,” Ms. Smith said.
Residents are also expressing concern with the way the public service conducts other business, according to the junior minister.
“People complain about getting access — reasonably fast access — to crown lands,” she said.
“And there are myriads of approvals that take forever to be processed. I have to say that there is insufficient accountability coupled with a lack of urgency in delivering services to the public.”
The minister added that similar delays plague the civil service’s own hiring process, which she said now takes at least six months.
“By the time “the process is finished, the candidate of choice is long gone,” she said, adding, “Notwithstanding the hard work and the commitment of our public servants, it is the very structure of the public service that renders it ineffective.”
Recent reforms
The minister also called into question the efficacy of recent governance reforms.
“Despite our diligent completion of the 49 recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry, I am yet to see widespread improvement in efficiency in the public service,” she said.
Governor Daniel Pruce did not respond to a request for comment.
