Before Christmas I said I was going to write about the Crafts Alive Village. It certainly looks nice (as does the strip where the tent city once stood), but individual units are pokey little stalls, with hardly enough room for the wares, the proprietor and any customers to move around in. I think each stall should have a nice printed label or board stating the name of the shop, the name of the proprietor, and the trade licence number, all visible when the doors are open.

I hope our spastic government agencies are proactive in granting permits, setting rents, and ensuring that they are collected. Of course, if the rents are too high, there will be no profits.

So the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College has its budget cut and has to find other means of raising funds. I’m not sure whether they pay their electricity bill, but, if they do, they could economise by turning off the lights. On Christmas night at 6:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., the whole campus was a blaze of lights, with not one car in the car parks, and presumably therefore an empty building.

SFC report

The recent Standing Finance Committee hearings seem to have been one long moan by department heads that they are understaffed and short of funds! Can you believe it? Government is the biggest employer and seems to have a lot of high earning dead wood on its books, and yet they say they are short staffed! Even so, I hear that when anyone applies for a job they are told, “We are not hiring.” Something is wrong somewhere.

The BVI Tourist Board says it doesn’t have enough funds to market the territory properly. I imagine the budget cut just covered reducing all those first-class fares down to coach. Can you believe that all their staff travelled first class? Not to mention the $500,000 credit card “fraud,” where the lady pleaded guilty so that the names of all those other stalwart citizens, who were probably allowed to use the card to buy lingerie and face lifts and so on, were not publicised.

Medical tourism

The subject of medical schools and medical tourism has come up again. It’s all very well allocating hospital floors (at what hospital?) for this purpose, but what about accommodation for students, doctors, teachers and so on, over and above the accommodation that has to be found for the 32 doctors and 200 nurses to run the hospital (what hospital?). Even with our present glut of available rental space, I am sure there is not enough of a suitable standard to attract expatriates (from wherever).

There is no rush to set up the national health scheme as it depends on the completion of the hospital (what hospital?).

Immigration cards

So the Immigration Department runs out of landing cards because they don’t have the money to buy new ones! You can’t make this up!

The Customs Department continues to employ interdicted staff, reportedly due to tardiness on the part of the Human Resources Department. Admittedly, they may not have been convicted, though two of them seem to be serving time and still employed, but others should at least be suspended pending the outcome of their cases. Sounds like the fox in the henhouse. I wonder if this tardiness is due to what appears to be the complete inability of our leaders to apply the law due to family, connections, votes and so on.

Complaints commish

Deputy Premier Dr. Kedrick Pickering complains about Complaints Commissioner Elton Georges! Ironic, isn’t it? Mr. Georges knows that the only way to get information recorded is to write it down, so that recipients cannot later deny having seen or heard it. He knows how often phone calls go unanswered or unreturned.

Then to find that residents can’t refer complaints to the Labour Tribunal because it hasn’t been constituted yet because no one wants the top job is absolutely unbelievable. If this is such a touchy area for any belonger to want to do the job, then it obviously needs an expatriate with some authority to settle disputes (who won’t be overruled or ignored by authorities).

Status

Suddenly our legislators think it’s ridiculous that some people have been here for 30 years and still have not got any status. But this has been going on through several administrations of all parties, but mostly Virgin Islands Party governments. It has been left to lower level officials who have been able to wield far more authority over who they let in or approve than they should have. There should be an annual quota, be it five or 500, with an in line waiting list that is adhered to. When the quota is full for the year, that’s it.

So someone else has been imprisoned for illegal entry! Just deport them as soon as they are apprehended, and make them persona non grata at all entry points. This would save us money and free up beds in the prison.

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