Governor Boyd McCleary will not form a commission of inquiry into government’s contract with United Kingdom-based Biwater as requested by petitioners last August, he said in a written response to the group.
According to the letter, dated March 23, Mr. McCleary is “asking the auditor general to monitor the contract carefully and provide quarterly reports” to him, and requesting that she “make recommendations if she believes additional professional expertise is necessary.”
In the letter, Mr. McCleary states that “there must be some doubts” about whether government has the capacity to manage the Biwater contract effectively, “given the relative complexity of the agreement and the experience of managing other major contracts.”
However, the governor concludes that Biwater is “likely to deliver the facilities” in the contract, and that the contract will “help address the long-standing sewerage problems of the territory.”
He further states that the Biwater contract will “produce potable water at a rate which appears to offer a better value to the people of the Virgin Islands.”
Bishop John Cline, one of many who publicly protested the Biwater contract last fall, said today that the governor’s response was an “insult to citizens of the BVI.” Bishop Cline said Mr. McCleary’s letter failed to take into account a proposal submitted by Ocean Conversion-BVI that was $45 million cheaper than the Biwater price.
He added that he did not know what step opponents to the Biwater contract would take next, but that “certainly, silence is not the path.”
See the March 31, 2011 edition for full coverage.