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by pltm
(PLTM) - President of the Virgin Islands Party (VIP), Dr. Natalio “Sowande Uhuru” Wheatley has clapped back at Chairman of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and Minister for Education and Culture, Hon. Myron Walwyn, over the call he made in the media this week for Premier hopefuls to run At-Large and not hide behind the districts.
In the article published on July 16, Hon. Walwyn urged politicians aiming to be Premier to run At-Large, so that the entire Territory can vote for them, as opposed to the district where a small subsection of the population has a say.
The Minister said “…Let your leader run At-Large, so that the people can decide who they want to chart us or take us through these difficult times."
However, the comment was rubbished by Dr. Wheatley, who said, “I think we have a very serious situation that we’re facing and we require strong focused leadership, not persons throwing out reckless challenges,” he stated.
Dr. Wheatley, who responded during the Speak Out BVI radio program on July 17, relegated the discussion to be being petty.
The VIP President stated, “In my opinion, the challenge that was thrown out is really much ado about nothing, and a bit frivolous really. I think that Hon. Walwyn’s challenge almost reduced this very serious elections that we have coming up as nothing more than some type of popularity contest.”
The VIP President stated that the Territory has in the past had leaders who represented districts.
“It is quite possible and it’s been done in our history that persons can come from a district and have a focus on the entire Territory. In fact, we celebrate H. Lavity Stoutt in terms of all the things that he did with a territorial focus—a comprehensive school, building a college,” he noted.
“H. Lavity Stoutt established the college in Paraquita Bay, he didn’t establish it in the First District, so just because someone comes from the district doesn’t mean that they can’t offer good leadership for the entire Territory. It is common to the Caribbean for the party that wins the majority of seats in Parliament, that their leader becomes either the Chief Minister, the Premier, the Prime Minister, what have you; and so I don’t think the people of the BVI should be distracted with such rhetoric,” the VIP President pointed out.
Dr. Wheatley further announced that the comment was not a matter of interest to the public, and that residents have bigger issues to worry about.
“We’re in hurricane season, the people of the Virgin Islands want to hear that we’re going to get the place cleaned up…If we have another storm now we will be in trouble…This is what the people want to hear about—how we’re going to get the place cleaned up and make sure that we don’t have a bunch of missiles flying all over the place, damaging persons’ homes, properties and potential persons’ lives.”
“Persons still without roofs on, persons still needing help, a lot of our schools are still not fixed. These are the issues that persons are concerned about, not whether the leader of the party is running At-Large or not.”
He further noted that Hon. Walwyn should focus on recouping the monies that were allocated to BVI Airways instead of focusing on the matter of candidacy.
“I am hoping that this upcoming elections would be about examining the record of the administration and putting forward ideas in terms of what the next administration is going to do to fix all of the problems that we have.”
“Perhaps Hon. Walwyn should focus on reclaiming—let’s call it $8M from BVI Airways. This is what people want to know about. Who is going to be held accountable for the mismanagement of millions of dollars of tax-payers’ money. These are the issues we want to know about,” he added.
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