Kelvin Hodge, a 37-year public officer who also owns Kelly’s Hardware store in West End, has been appointed by Cabinet to chair the BVI Ports Authority board for three years with retroactive effect from May 13, Premier Andrew Fahie announced last Thursday.

Although the previous chairman, Nathaniel Isaac, was appointed on May 16, 2019 for a three-year period, he tendered his resignation early last month, according to BVIPA Marketing Director Natasha Chalwell.

In a statement last Thursday in the House of Assembly, the premier did not say why Mr. Isaac resigned less than a year into his three-year term, and Ms. Chalwell declined to comment, referring all questions to the Premier’s Office.

Mr. Fahie and Communications Director Arliene Penn did not respond to requests to comment for this article.

In the HOA statement, however, the premier said the BVIPA “team” is “continually transitioning,” and he thanked Mr. Isaac “for taking the team through the transition phase.”

He added, “Now it is up to the new chairman and his board appropriately advising the BVI Ports Authority in advancing into the next phase, which is transformation.”

The other members of the board include Roxane Sylvester, Vincent Wattley, Keith Flax, Tamarei Wheatley-Hodge, and Damien Lettsome.

Mr. Hodge could not be reached for comment.

Management team

Meanwhile, the top position on the BVIPA management team remains empty.

The BVIPA released a statement on May 29 announcing that Dean Fahie, who is currently the operations director, had been promoted to acting managing director, but then retracted that statement three days later.

According to a Jan. 29 Cabinet decision, Lenius Lendor, a St. Lucian who was appointed MD in September 2018 under the previous government, was terminated on Jan. 3, the same day that John Samuel was appointed acting MD for a three-month period.

It is unclear who, if anyone, held the role after Mr. Samuel, who ran unsuccessfully under the Virgin Islands Party banner for District Six representative in the February 2019 general election.

Asked last week whether the MD role was empty, Ms. Chalwell said the board had chosen Mr. Fahie for the job and was waiting on the Premier’s Office to approve that decision.

“The whole process for the appointment [of Mr. Fahie] was not fully completed at the time of the [press] release,” Ms. Chalwell said on June 8.

Though the board still intends to promote Mr. Fahie to acting managing director, “There is the next level of the appointment process,” said Ms. Chalwell, who did not provide further details.

The BVIPA will send out an updated release when that process is completed, she added.

“Once that is confirmed, we will be able to re-release a statement with whatever the confirmation will be,” Ms. Chalwell said.