Price point
A Beaconite on a budget has a tip for stores in the Virgin Islands: Label items with price tags. The reporter is genuinely curious about why so many proprietors in the territory skip this practice altogether. Items in the VI, especially food items, can vary greatly in terms of cost. But without price tags, it is incredibly difficult for shoppers standing at the aisle shelves to determine which brands they prefer or which ingredients are most cost-effective. Yes, they can bring an item to a cashier and ask for its cost, but would it not be simpler to know the price upfront? And surely cashiers are tired of returning items to shelves or reversing charges when buyers are shocked by a high price they didn’t expect? Adding price tags just doesn’t seem so hard. And it is particularly important at a time when inflation has driven prices through the roof and consumers are struggling.
Lesson not learned
During Tropical Storm Ernesto, vegetation overgrowth from months of neglect knocked down power lines across the territory and hobbled the electricity grid for days. Fallen tree branches, which should have been cut before the storm, tore power lines off their poles and out of their transformers, causing fires and round-the-clock labour for BVI Electricity Corporation technicians. Six weeks later, a Beaconite often notices work crews hacking shrubbery away from the roadsides, but overhead many powerlines remain covered with growth. If another tropical storm were to hit today, he believes the Ernesto fallout would likely repeat itself. After all, if the territory were to go on storm watch tomorrow, how much of the islands could the BVIEC possibly cover to prepare for hurricane-force winds? Of course, part of the problem is that specialised technicians are required to address the situation. With high voltages running through the lines, residents are forced to wait on employees from the BVIEC to protect their homes from longer-than-necessary power outages. He hopes district representatives and other residents from around the territory will begin to band together and demand better storm preparation for the electricity grid.
Time’s up
Is the much-remarked-upon phenomenon of “island time” really real? Well, a Beaconite has spent enough seemingly endless epochs in enough lines in Virgin Islands banks and phone shops to believe so. While this “island time” may be lovely in certain scenarios, such as being on the beach, it can become incredibly frustrating when you want to make business your business. And yet the government finds itself asking London to cut it some slack because it — nearly — got the Commission of Inquiry recommendations through in time on the extension to the extension of the deadline for reform. Indeed, completing 47 of the 48 provisions before crunch London talks earlier this month might be seen as good going compared to other efforts. The Beaconite spent many years covering politics in the Irish Republic, where, inevitably, whichever party was in power, almost every major project would finally turn up well overdue and massively over budget. Island/Ireland time, you might say. So, with Ireland being England’s first colony and the Virgin Islands being one of Britain’s last overseas territories, maybe there’s some interwoven thread through history? If so, when Overseas Territories Minister Stephen Doughty visits in November, maybe he should reflect and use his own island time to finally lift the threat of direct rule from London, which is largely a paper tiger anyway. Time for change.
