The House of Assembly and Governor Daniel Pruce should be ashamed of themselves for leaving in place absurd rules limiting the public’s access to HOA members’ Register of Interests.
In theory, the register — where elected officials are required by law to declare their financial interests — should be a valuable check on potential abuses of power within a democratic society.
But the Commission of Inquiry found that legislators had repeatedly broken the law for more than a decade by routinely failing to file their interests as required.
To help guard against such breaches, the COI recommended opening the register to the public. This was excellent advice, and the government agreed to follow it as part of the COI reform framework signed by the VI and UK in June 2022.
However, a July 2022 amendment opening the register to public scrutiny also included bizarre viewing restrictions that rightly drew a sharp rebuke from then-governor John Rankin.
They included a ban on note-taking and making copies; requirements for the viewer to pay a $15 fee and be monitored by the registrar; and a prohibition on publishing the register’s contents.
Such restrictions, Mr. Rankin rightly pointed out, “run counter to the principle of transparency” and make the register public “only in a highly limited way.”
Mr. Rankin therefore asked the HOA to revisit the issue in 2023 with a new amendment lifting the restrictions.
That did not happen.
The new amendment, which was finally Gazetted last month following Mr. Pruce’s delayed assent, reduces the fee to view each HOA member’s interests from $15 to $10 (instead of abolishing the fee entirely as initially proposed), but it keeps in place all the other viewing restrictions criticised by Mr. Rankin.
Asked why Mr. Rankin’s suggestions weren’t taken, Premier Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley said legislators were “satisfied” with the register’s previous rules.
Mr. Pruce’s office, meanwhile, said only that he assented “in line with his responsibilities” as governor.
Those responses fall flat.
Indeed, they are offensive to VI residents who have long been clamoring for greater transparency from their government, the governor and the UK alike.
Following Mr. Rankin’s previous criticisms, Mr. Pruce’s decision to sign off on the restrictions seems perplexing at first blush.
Unfortunately, however, it is not out of keeping with the UK’s tendency to dodge the transparency it so often advocates.
As an employee of the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, for instance, the governor does not have to make his own interests public.
Additionally, the FCDO has historically used exemptions in the UK’s Freedom of Information Act to shield communications about the overseas territories on the grounds that disclosure could harm UK-OT relationships.
So it’s unlikely that VI residents will ever know the full reasoning behind Mr. Pruce’s decision to maintain the register’s restrictive rules.
Ultimately, then, the battle for greater transparency in the VI will have to be fought by voters.
Local legislators currently in office clearly will not support a truly open register of interests. And Mr. Pruce has now sided with those legislators over the broader public.
The current Register of Interests falls far short of the high standards the people were promised after the COI. Legislators should revisit the issue and lift the viewing restrictions once and for all.
If they don’t, the people should insist.
