Commentator, Douglas Wheatley, felt the situation where locals were in the minority in the RVIPF and HM Prison was untenable. Photo: VINO

Minister for Education and Culture Hon. Myron V. Walwyn previously admonished prison authorities to hire locally and insisted that a local recruitment drive be embarked upon. Photo: VINO/File

Talk show host and commentator Douglas Wheatley has now described what obtains within the two entities as an ‘untenable position’ and suggested that something needs to be done about it.

“We have a situation now where Virgin Islanders are in the minority in the Police Force and I think it behoves all of us to do something about that,” Wheatley said on his 3D show aired on April 26, 2013 on a local radio staion.

The host further expressed happiness at interventions made by Minister for Education and Culture Hon. Myron V. Walwyn to remedy the situation but felt more could be done.

“I am glad that the Ministry under Myron Walwyn has stepped forward… I want him to do more. I want other agencies and Ministries to join in so that we can have people placed in all of these positions,” he added.

“To me,” he continued, “it’s an untenable position and we have to do something about it.”

At a workshop held in February of this year, the Minister admonished prison authorities to hire locally, and stated emphatically, “He who has ears let him hear.”

“I admonish those conducting the interviews to do everything possible to hire locally,” Hon. Walwyn stated back then.

He continued, “And I will take my time to say this, as a matter of fact, I will be insisting that we immediately look at a local recruitment drive followed by a short training programme to create a pool from which to hire locally to fill these vacant posts.”

Commenting further on the situation, Wheatley said, “We have to step up to that and we have to do so much more.”

Independence study buried?

Meanwhile, co-host of the programme, Natalio Wheatley aka Sowande Uhuru expressed concern that a study previously commissioned on independence within the Territory had gone AWOL.

“There was a group of people commissioned to do a study on independence… it really is the incorrect thing to do to behave as if that report was never done or never existed,” he related.

According to Sowande, “As a government we put time, money and energy into things, just for it to sit on the shelves and then every few years we go back to the topic and we repeat the same exercise.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” he added.

Sowande felt that the study “really needs to be acknowledged”.

Hinting at one of the possible areas of significance of the study, Sowande stated, “if we have any serious discussions about independence that can be a reference point for our discussions.”