First District Representative Honourable Andrew A. Fahie during an exclusive interview with this news site, pointed to a number of reasons responsible for most of the 'lows' in his district under the NDP ruling government. Photo: VINO

The NDP Government has be lambasted for allegedly giving away monies to the already rich even as the Government has been crying broke. Photo: VINO/File

Consulting with District Representatives and members of the various communities have been a very weak link in managing the affairs of the Territory. Photo: VINO/File

In an exclusive interview with Virgin Islands News online yesterday January 6, 2014, Hon Fahie spoke at length of the highs and lows of his District since the NDP government took office in 2011. First at the tip of his tongue, were devised strategies that were fashioned to tie the hands of non-NDP District Representatives.

Axe on district funds

“One of the areas that has been a challenge is that I have not been able to understand why the administration has cut the district allocations that is used to help the people of the District,” he said.

The allocation has been cut by $25,000.00 and according to Hon Fahie, the NDP has claimed that they had done this as a cost saving measure. “…I see this as a paradox, a paradoxical kind of action. This was an unavoidable notion implied when examining a number of glaring facts. Firstly, the hiring of a contractor for the Airport project for over half of a million dollars and secondly, the Georgie Hill project which started at one thousand and end up at over one million dollars.”

“When you see the different projects and you can name them one by one starting at one amount and end up nearly 400 percent increased, I can’t understand what they mean when they say they were using cost saving,” said Hon Fahie.

Merchants given incentives by “broke” NDP Gov’t

What was difficult in making one buy the excuses of ‘cost saving’ initiative for cutting the public servant increment, according to Fahie, is the other fact that the NDP boldly announced that they have been giving away incentives.

“They say they giveaway incentives to the merchants by cutting out some of the duty,” said Fahie, who questioned that if they are broke, why revenue is being given away.

 “…You do not do certain things, you do not give away revenue if you are broke so I am convinced that this is just a political gimmick,” contended the former Minister for Education.

“This administration is known for the things they do not tell you,” alleged Hon Fahie. He claimed it has been a bedrock platform of the NDP government that the VIP government had left the government broke. “But they do not tell you that a week after they got into power over $50 million came in from Financial Services which was no doing of theirs. Which meant that they could have paid the bills.”

He said that cutting the District monies has been used as an impediment to stop the District Representatives, especially those who are not on their side, from getting a number of things done.

VIP did poor job of telling of NDP debts left in 2007

According to Hon Fahie, the VIP administration did a very poor job at telling the people how much debt the former NDP government had left the country in prior to the VIP taking office during the term before the 2011 elections.

“…But they left bills when we took over in 2007 but we did a poor job in telling the people how much bills they left but they left bills because governments are something that continues and when they leave office, whenever that is, they also will leave bills.”

In addition, according to Hon Fahie, this has gone hand-in-hand with the lack of respect that has been continuously been effected by some Ministers.

Despite these challenges, Hon Fahie said that he will not allow his spirit to be broken especially when it comes to representing the interest of the people of the First District and those of the rest of the Territory.

Disrespectful Ministers

Spoken of times and again, is the blatant and noticeable lack of respect exhibited by some Ministers of the NDP government. “I don’t like to keep saying this but it keeps happening.”

According to Hon Fahie, when it comes to dealing with matters relating to the Districts, especially matters that would have been brought to their attention by the District Representatives, a high level of disregard and disrespect is exhibited.

“… if they do anything, which is rear that they do anything, they do it without the input of the District Representative and the people,” alleged Hon Fahie.

He said he respects the fact that At-Large Candidates have to do certain things but the common courtesy of sitting down with those within the District first is of vital importance but that has been severely lacking. “Even if you don’t agree you can say that you have been informed but you do not agree, I think you should do it this way.”

Bus transport 10 years strong and counting

Hon Fahie said it is an uncontested fact that the principle of involving District Representatives to the maximum while the VIP was in power was adhered to and to say otherwise would be to “manufacture untruth”.

He further noted that with the cutting of the allocations for the District he was forced to pull back on a number of things including the opening of a District office.

However, despite the setbacks, the First District can still boast of being the first and only one to maintain a twice weekly bus service for students attending the H. Lavity Stoutt College. In addition, the opening of the home-work centre is also underway.

“...I have been doing now for over ten years (bus service) and despite the fact that they have cut the monies I am still doing it,” noted Hon Fahie.