We fear we spoke too soon.
Last November, we praised the Virgin Islands government for preliminary steps that should have boosted transparency surrounding the proposed expansion of the Terrance B. Lettsome International Airport.
But now, officials have relapsed into a familiar and unwelcome pattern of secrecy.
We urge them to reverse this approach now.
Starting when the expansion plan was first announced more than a decade ago, the project has been dogged by successive governments’ secrecy and failure to meaningfully engage with the public.
That’s why we strongly supported the announcement last year that consultants were sought to produce a comprehensive business case by reviewing the planned expansion in unprecedented detail and answering longstanding questions about its viability.
The review — which is purportedly following the robust “five-case model” recommended as best practice by His Majesty’s Treasury in the United Kingdom — is to examine the economic rationale for the project and provide a full cost-benefit analysis.
It is also expected to assess community input and potential impacts, analyse travel demand and potential for tourism growth, and estimate the cost and viability of the completed facility, among many other requirements.
In other words, the business case will address questions that have gone unanswered for more than a decade.
For the first time, it should also meet the requirement in the Protocols for Effective Financial Management, which the government and the United Kingdom signed in 2012, to produce a “business case” and a “robust” cost-benefit analysis before starting the procurement process for any major capital project.
Now, the first part of the five-part business case has been completed, and Cabinet approved it in September. But officials are refusing to publish the document for now, leaving residents in the dark ahead of planned public meetings later this month.
This is a big mistake. This project is slated to be the costliest infrastructure project in VI history by far. Residents deserve to have timely, detailed information about it to allow them to provide informed input.
To that end, proper public meetings are also urgently needed as soon as possible. To date, consultants from KPMG (BVI) Limited, who are conducting the business case, have hosted invitation-only consultations with “stakeholders.”
But these sessions do not count as public meetings.
In the coming weeks, then, the consultants must hold several meetings about the project that are open to anyone.
The sessions should be held in each district, and they should give all residents the chance to weigh in on all aspects of the airport project — including the question of whether it should proceed at all.
In July, we were disheartened to hear government officials announce that they had already made up their mind on that point, deciding to proceed even without the benefit of promised public consultations or the completed business case.
This approach was wrong-headed, but it was not new. In 2012, then-deputy premier Dr. Kedrick Pickering said at one of two public meetings about the project that he would discuss not whether the Beef Island runway would be expanded but how it should be done.
More recently, Premier Dr. Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley spoke similarly, stating that he believes the territory has “passed the stage where we are trying to decide whether we are extending the runway or not.”
Dr. Wheatley’s suggestion that voters should have known that the current government planned to expand the airport is reasonable: Representatives have been clear on this point.
But a healthy democracy demands true public participation and dialogue, especially when the subject is likely to be controversial.
Dr. Wheatley’s government and the BVI Airports Authority should therefore reconsider their positions. They should release the completed portion of the business case, hold press conferences about the project, and launch a well-advertised series of truly public consultations across the territory.