The Protocols for Effective Financial Management are good for both the governed and government, and are crucial to keeping the Virgin Islands on the cutting edge of a much more socially and economically integrated world.
Christmas is on the horizon and some voters here view their legislators as the veritable Santa Claus. Apparently, a vocal and influential minority expect their elected representative, in addition to meeting the normal and reasonable requests of Joe Public, to pay also for vacations, home extensions, mortgage arrears, roof repairs and even lingerie. This is absurd and unbelievable, but apparently true.
Consequently, the fight for political power increasingly becomes an economic narrative about whose snout is in the proverbial feeding trough. The trough, in reality belonging to taxpayers, eventually becomes the personal piggybank of a very small number of politically well-connected voters and their powerful political patrons.
However, it is humble and hard-up Joe Taxpayer who must ultimately foot the bill when things get out of kilter. Bear in mind that it is a good thing for the politician to use his “special allowance” to aid the deserving and struggling family with house rent, essential groceries, school supplies and uniforms, and critical medical care. But paying for a cruise, a new kitchen or roofing repairs for those who can afford to foot their own bill is an insult to the national intelligence.
‘Unethical’ spending
Corruption and fiscal mismanagement are not unique to the VI. And spending on pet projects — or looking after family, friends, school and college fraternity colleagues, or members of your lodge, golf club and even church — with Joe Taxpayer’s money is a characteristic of a global political culture rife with greed.
These are questionable and unethical uses of public money, and bring to mind pork spending in the United States; a culture of privilege in the United Kingdom; European subsidies to wealthy landowners; tax breaks for the rich; and the in-your-face looting and stealing that is the modus vivendi in developing countries such as Nigeria and Zaire, to name just a few examples.
And yes, there is good reason sometimes for a politician to assist a voter with a retaining wall and a concrete road to his or her home, especially when the voter is in dire straits. However, this type of “political spending” appears to have been taken to the extreme in the VI in recent years. A certain pedigree of voter in these paradise islands must begin to learn that everything is not about personal interest, and remember that there is a wider national interest that is just as important as one’s leaking roof and crumbling retaining wall.
In the so-called “developing world,” this type of perverse logic has bankrupted many a nation and kept millions in poverty. Some appear willing to take this tiny territory to the edge of the fiscal cliff, even into the abyss of debt and bankruptcy, as long as they can spend at will public money for the benefit of their “special constituents:” friends and families. In fact, the culture of greed has apparently created a whole class of sycophant in these islands who live off taxpayer handouts from powerful political friends and contacts.
So now it has taken Britain to step in and draw the line in the sand to correct this anomaly, which means that as long as the territory desires to live within the cocoon of Great Power Protection, then it is going to have to live within its means. It is going to have to adopt a culture of fiscal prudence. Or it can swim in the big wide world by itself by becoming completely independent. And any observer of VI society knows the people are not ready to go it alone.
The sad fact about political greed is that it frequently becomes a hammer when the “cookie jar” is emptied. This heavy implement falls most heavily on the socially vulnerable in the community: schoolchildren, teachers, public officers, struggling small businesses, the sick, the poor. These groups tend to suffer when important projects are put on the back burner: spending on critical national institutions such as the hospital and senior home; a new national public library complex; a new facility to house the national museum; an art centre and cultural resource unit; and a much needed second administration complex, to name a few.
However, when the going gets tough financially, the unscrupulous politician and his rich and well-connected friends are usually able to shelter themselves from the painful austerity that is the inevitable result of greed. When times get hard, the scalpel instead is used to cut into the public service, social needs and worthwhile social projects crucial to the national good.
Consequently, the hue and cry against the financial protocols is mainly from those long accustomed to dipping at will into the national gravy train. It is understandable the groans from those who will from now on be checked by a document of British origin that possesses integrity, real clout and the force of law — a rendition to good governance and accountability.
Apparently, when the global economy was booming, behaviour of this sort was below the radar and ignored: But in a tighter fiscal environment, the British mandarins at Whitehall and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office — and their political bosses at Westminster and numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street — are keeping watch on the money management of overseas territories.
Britain today is part of a European Union in economic crisis and recession. She cannot afford the financial irresponsibility of profligate children. Cases in point include pension fraud in Gibraltar, corruption in the Turks and Caicos Islands, and economic mismanagement in the Cayman Islands.
The core objective of the Protocols for Effective Financial Management is that the VI commit itself to “a pattern of governance that is consistent with global standards and best practice.” That is a very good thing indeed.
And know this: The protocols, if they work according to their true intent, will actually protect the socially vulnerable, the average citizen and the honest taxpayer from the excess and greed that can so easily become a negative feature of power.
The VI has fortunately avoided the fall of the British hammer, but apparently only just.
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