Auditing the environment
After reading that the Office of the Auditor General plans to begin carrying out environmental audits, a Beaconite was curious about what this process would entail.
After a quick visit to the website of an Australian-based firm that specialises in such audits, she learned that there are different types of environmental audits. Compliance audits are carried out to make sure a business or construction operation is following all applicable environmental regulations. From the context of the Standing Finance Committee discussions, the reporter thinks this likely will be the type carried out by auditors here. Other types include performance audits, for an organisation that wants to do what it can to make its operations as environmentally friendly as possible, and “ISO 14001” audits, named for the international standard environmental management system on which they’re based. The reporter looks forward to seeing how the new audits will help government with the complex task of enforcing environmental regulations in the territory.
Doorways to heaven
A Beaconite who walks around Road Town quite often was happy to see that workers at the Omar Hodge Building had finally cleared the sidewalk in the area. However, she was shocked to look up and see doors that opened onto empty air — just like at the neighbouring Ward Building. The reporter isn’t sure if this is a new trend in building design, but she’s certain that it isn’t safe. She hopes stairs will be added soon.
Prison problems
A Beaconite has written several articles about how Her Majesty’s Prison has faced difficulties in recent years, including escapes, infrastructure problems, and staffing shortages. But he notes that other Caribbean prisons face similar issues, as recent news reports about St. Croix’s Golden Grove Correctional Facility suggest. The island’s prison has a troubled history of poor conditions for inmates. Allegations of mismanagement and security problems there have prompted three decades of lawsuits from the United States federal government. For example, last year the discovery that an inmate was posting to Facebook on an illegal mobile phone forced an unplanned lockdown. Additionally, a few years ago auditors discovered that a microwave purchased by several inmates as part of a good behaviour programme also came with a free set of steak knives that were brought into the prison undetected. One was used in a stabbing. According to the Virgin Islands Daily News, Bureau of Corrections officials have recently found themselves in trouble again by failing to pay a court-ordered independent monitor for his services. The prison has missed three payments in nine months, a situation a federal judge ruled was “inexcusable.” The judge, Wilma Lewis, fined the bureau $1,000 and promised stiffer fines if future payments to the monitor didn’t occur. A Beaconite hopes that the fine will encourage the bureau to get its act together.
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