At a Virgin Gorda Farmer’s Week celebration in February 2008, Omar Hodge announced that soon-to-be-constructed greenhouses in South Sound would help transform the territory’s agricultural sector.
“I will move agriculture to another level, to commercialise it and produce food to feed the Virgin Islands,” Mr. Hodge, then the minister of natural resources and labour, said months before signing a $5.4 million contract to establish greenhouses on Tortola and VG. “What you see here today is only a sign of things to come.”
But almost five years later, no greenhouses have been built on VG; three metal and plastic structures later erected at Paraquita Bay currently sit unused; and the delays have left government with a different legacy: unpaid bills and uncertainty about the project’s future.
“The greenhouses have turned out to be a very difficult issue,” Deputy Premier Dr. Kedrick Pickering, who succeeded Mr. Hodge as NRL minister in November, told the House of Assembly on Dec. 17.
“We’ve tried in more ways than one to try and sort it out,” Dr. Pickering added. “There were some outstanding bills to be paid. We have honoured some. We’re in the process of honouring the others.”
See the Jan. 10, 2013 edition for full coverage.
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