The ruling Virgin Islands Party has a unified vision and wants voters to share it, candidates told residents at Tuesday evening’s launch of their 2011 manifesto.
“Please read this document,” said at-large representative Vernon Malone of the 59-page booklet. “You’ll see what we are proposing to do.”
Mr. Malone asked the supporters gathered in Sir Rupert Briercliffe Hall to hold the party to the agenda outlined in the manifesto. If promises in the manifesto are not carried out, Mr. Malone said, voters should “demand” an explanation.
“And we will owe you that explanation,” he added.
Mr. Malone and the other VIP candidates read “highlights” from the document, which includes sections on governance, education, the economy, security, infrastructure and environmental management.
Increasing the public’s engagement in government is one of the party’s goals, said Deputy Premier Dancia Penn, who spoke about the governance section of the manifesto. Ms. Penn said the party wants to hold regular open forum-type meetings with residents, and the manifesto states that the party will create “an entirely new consultative mechanism” for getting input from the public.
While the manifesto does not reveal what that process might be, it does call for creating a police complaints commission, conducting an in-depth survey of residents, and reducing “the rigidity in communications channels and protocols.”
The party will also work to build consensus for legislative decisions; provide more timely annual reports from various government bodies; streamline government processes; and “right-size” the public sector workforce, Ms. Penn said.
At-large representative Keith Flax spoke about the VIP’s plans to turn toward more green energy use. He said the manifesto calls for updating energy legislation and diversifying energy sources to include wind and solar — promises that echo the VIP’s 2007 manifesto but that haven’t come to fruition during the party’s four-year reign.
Mr. Flax added, however, that the “government has had discussions with various interested parties” about providing other forms of power for the territory.
Old and new manifestos
Premier Ralph O’Neal spoke about the manifesto’s potential as a tool to check VIP leaders. He said if the party wins the government again on Nov. 7, he plans to lay the manifesto on the table of the House of Assembly, making it an official public document.
In March 2008, Mr. O’Neal took that step with the party’s 2007 manifesto. At the time, Opposition Leader Dr. Orlando Smith questioned whether it was appropriate for him to do so.
“I would have thought that we would have had a document presented by the government to be guided by. I did not expect that this would be something that the party would be presenting here today,” Dr. Smith is recorded as saying in the Hansard report from the March 6, 2008 sitting.
Speaker of the House Roy Harrigan allowed the move after Mr. O’Neal said that his party controlled the government.
Tuesday, Mr. O’Neal said he had laid the 2007 document on the table so that any representatives “could ask the premier or any of the ministers ‘what has happened to so-so-so’ or ‘why hasn’t this been done?’”
Unfinished business
Indeed, many items from the 2007 manifesto remain undone, such as completion of the new Peebles Hospital, a mini-hospital on Virgin Gorda, a “poly-clinic” in East End and the street naming and house numbering programme.
That manifesto had also promised to “complete the construction of facilities at the existing high school campus.” In May, Education and Culture Minister Andrew Fahie told the House of Assembly that government was still working toward that goal, having modified plans for a second high school at Paraquita Bay drawn up under the previous administration.
In other areas, some of the same proposals from 2007 are being re-used, such as fostering hydroponic food production and creating a fisheries and agriculture board. In this area, Natural Resources and Labour Minister Omar Hodge pointed to government’s as-yet-incomplete greenhouses, which he said Tuesday will eventually provide enough food for the VI to become a food exporter.
Both the 2007 and 2011 VIP manifestos pledge to “fight for” two additional representatives in the HOA: one for Anegada and one for Jost Van Dyke and the surrounding islands.
Recession challenges
The government’s failure to complete some of the VIP’s 2007 promises was not for a lack of effort, however, Ms. Penn said in a recent interview.
“All things considered, a great deal was accomplished in many spheres of life,” she said, adding that improvements have been made that touch “all aspects of life” in the territory. “We all would have wished to have done more,” Ms. Penn said, adding that change is never quick or easy, and that the government has faced the challenge of a global recession.
Ms. Penn, who is the minister of health and social development, said progress has been made in several areas, especially in health, where the government developed a health “road map,” a national health policy, and other strategies.
“These things might sound academic and unimportant, but when a problem arises, people suddenly begin to need to know how to deal with these things,” she said.
Reflecting on the party’s past performance on Tuesday, Mr. O’Neal avoided specifics of the last manifesto but said residents can “rest assured that we have done your business and done it well.”