$18K a year to educate a high school child & $60K to keep someone in prison- Hon Skelton
Deputy Premier Minister for Environment, Natural Resources, Climate Change, Labour and Immigration Hon Julian Fraser RA (R3), Minister for Health and Social Development Hon Vincent O. Wheatley (R9), Opposition Leader Hon Ronnie W. Skelton (AL), and Opposition Member Hon Lorna G. Smith, OBE (AL) also expressed similar concerns.
Hon Skelton noted that such bills are necessary and more like it will come because money is involved. “Money attracts the good, the bad, and the ugly, and you will always have the good, the bad, and the ugly.”
He said; however, that the Financial Investigation Agency (Amendment) Bill 2024 was another bill about “finding, confining and putting in jail.”
According to the Opposition Leader, he has also said to his colleagues in the House that it costs the government about $18,000 to educate a high school child per year and $60,000 to keep someone in jail over that same period. “That’s four high school kids we could educate. So we need to find ways to fix some of these stuff, Madam Speaker.”
Legislation necessary but a ‘balance’ must be struck- Hon Wheatley
Meanwhile, Hon Wheatley said he understood the need for such safeguarding legislation in financial services as there are international NPOs like the Red Cross, Rotary and Lions and some of them have been used in the past for nefarious purposes; however, striking that balance to protect local companies is going to be a challenge.
“We must always be in front of the game because the goalpost will continue to be moved. So as frustrating as it will get, and has been, it will continue to be, we have to resolve ourselves and tell ourselves we are going to be here ever so often doing amendments.
“We have to be very mindful. I don’t know how we are going to do it but we have a lot of brains in this House, how to carve out an area to protect our local businesses from becoming victims of international best practices and victims of the BVI’s success as global players in financial services and so forth.
Hon Wheatley said legislators have to “dig down” in the Committee Stage “where we really look at the implications locally for this international piece of legislation that we have here.”
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14 Responses to “$18K a year to educate a high school child & $60K to keep someone in prison- Hon Skelton”
Why would they sell us out and then turn around now to correct their mistake? Stop sucking up to strangers interest!
What works in their country is not meant for us as a tiny circle of island & people who came out of slavery and see each other time & time again.
The stranger who colonizes a village will always cry corruption when the tribe help each other, because the stranger wants benefits, with no history of earning it besides the killing of villagers to back it up.
They want to be treated as if they earned a reputation. Want to act as if they built the village. They left our ancestors for dead & in poverty. Facts.
There is no space for loyalty and earning rep for a colonizer. They come late, take what they want, kill, enslave, breed up forcibly, steal and then say you are corrupt when you give your childhood neighbor a extra helping.
You see your neighbor everyday, you know their family, their history. You grew up with them but where do these people get off calling us corrupt. It is only a tactic to break the village bond used time & time again.
I blame our own too because you all went along with it, to this day people can not work as a village again because someone will cry corruption!!! Run to the 'master' for a COI. sucking up.
Surprise! 'Master' wants the constitution suspended. Idiots.
The same masters had no problem decimating the native tribes world wide, and to this day will not apologize for the slavery that made their countries rich. Do we really think they care about corruption?
Helping your neighbor is common sense unless you live in a city rural folk always help each other.
People should be outraged that there is a willful attempt to make no apology for slavery, and tailor our laws to truly protect our own fully sober and aware of their conniving colonizing corruption in mind.
The kids will come out of school and end up right in a alley buying some tainted dusted sprayed down pesticide ridden BS from someone who might have other products & maybe tools for sale. Weed is a gateway to crime because it is illegal.
Let them grow it themself or pick it up in a store or call a guy with legit reviews who isnt potentially violent and unscrupulous. If they get shorted or stolen call the police, no violence.
One move can save us from continuing a culture of crime, hiding, and hating the police for upholding a law no one respects.