Junior Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries Dr the Hon Karl Dawson (R1) said he is looking forward to 2025 coming from an intense 2024. Photo: Government of the Virgin Islands

Junior Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries Dr the Hon Karl Dawson (R1) was speaking on Christmas in the Virgin Islands presented by the Government. Photo: Government of the Virgin Islands

Dr Dawson was speaking with the Acting Director of Communications Mrs Karia J. Christopher on an episode of Christmas in the Virgin Islands presented by the government.

“I’m looking forward to it [2025] because 2024 we would have had the most intensive period; I believe of legislation development. That is to say the time we spent in the House making legislation and a lot of that was driven by the Commission of Inquiry [CoI] and requirements from that,” he said.

Dr Dawson said that many useful things came from the CoI as far as governance is concerned adding it is now time to put these laws into action.

“We did the work of passing the laws but not is a matter of how do we make it our culture, it’s not simply a matter of saying the law is there but the principles behind the law, how do we go about making it our culture,” he explained.

‘I look forward to continued growth’- Dr Dawson

Dr Dawson added that it is his belief that strides are being made to implement the new laws.

It is important, he said, that everyone understands, “why we do it, understand why we want to be transparent, understand why we want to communicate better, understand why we want to have involvement in development of many policies and issues we are faced with in the Territory”.

Dr Dawson added that he looks forward to continued growth around building a culture of good governance and governance transformation.

Fulfilling the CoI recommendations he said, “wasn’t simply a tick box exercise for the Virgin Islands”.

The road to greater autonomy ends with independence- Dr Dawson

‘I make no secret of saying that as far as our country is concerned that we must always be on a road in my view to greater autonomy, where the end of that road is, various people may have various ideas, my idea of the end of that road is independence,” he stated boldly.

The Virgin Islands he added should seek more responsibility for itself which does not only mean good laws but executing those laws well.

“There must be good planning and there must be good accountability if we’re going to be satisfied and people would have confidence in the systems of government, not the people of government but the systems of government,” Dr Dawson said.