Locals have little control, stake in tourism & financial services – Cromwell Smith
On the show aired locally last evening September 27, 2012, Smith expressed that “they (trust companies) unify to form a power base from which they could operate and extract concessions even if those concessions are harmful to our people and to our economy.”
He opined that this was so that they could “get lower prices, cheaper labour and outsource” if they wanted to do so.
Smith suggested that this meant locals were not in control of the economy in any meaningful way. “We participate in the trust industry, perhaps no more than five per cent; we participate in the tourism industry, perhaps twenty-five per cent.”
The host urged that in order to mitigate against possible harmful effects there was need to plan strategically, "to get ourselves in a power position where we can respond meaningfully to this type of behaviour”.
Mr. Smith also noted that many times Virgin islander fuss at government about unemployment related issues, “not realising that in a lot of instances, our government is virtually powerless… or lacks the courage to do what needs to be done, for fear that we might lose the quality of life that we have come to enjoy”.
“It’s a very serious matter… almost slavery, almost like a plantation,” he added.
“You can’t defend yourself… you can’t say to any of the major players in the two sectors (Financial Services and Tourism) that we have in the VI ‘I need you to hire my people, I need my people trained, I need you to send them away on internships so that they could get that international experience; I have trained them in the college, and now just like how you bring people here for internships, I want you to send them there for internships’...We can’t make any demands on these industries because we don’t control them,” Smith argued.
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17 Responses to “Locals have little control, stake in tourism & financial services – Cromwell Smith ”
This laid back gimme attitude will be to the detriment of the BVI. How can you blame outside influence for recognizing that we are idiots, selfish and hate eachother and then capitalize on it? How is that their fault? It doesn't start with unity, it starts with understanding. When we understand, then we can unite. No use being united and confused. It's not always about the BVI, look at the bigger picture boss.
“You can’t defend yourself… you can’t say to any of the major players in the two sectors (Financial Services and Tourism) that we have in the VI ‘I need you to hire my people, I need my people trained, I need you to send them away on internships so that they could get that international experience; I have trained them in the college, and now just like how you bring people here for internships, I want you to send them there for internships’...We can’t make any demands on these industries because we don’t control them,” Smith argued."
I disagree with this strance. The Government grants licenses for these companies to operate here. The Government can call shots in areas of training our peeps and the like. It's not as bad as Mr. Punchie estimates. Lots of companies would rather fold here that to go elsewhere and set up shop with outrageous costs to set up, even outsourcing to Southeast Asia.
The BVI transformed its economy from primarily subsistence farming to tourism and financial services. However, it did not invest heavily in its local human capital to meet the growing needs of these industries, resulting in a shortage of skilled, semi-skilled, semi-professional and professional workers. Moreover, a heavy investment in human capital would have improved the probability of creating more entrepreneurs; and entrepreneurs are drivers of economic growth.
Economic growth, coupled with a shortage of skilled, semi-skilled, professional and semi-professional workers, drove the demand to import workers. Thus, I'm not too sure that we can lay the blame at the feet of expats for the low ownership and more control of the tourism and financial services industries. The reality is that we should have anticipated the need and take aggressive action to address it; we are still are still lagging in investing in and deepening our stock in human capital. We need to develop and implement a strategy for investing in human capital.
Moreover, the BVI is both a capitalist and a democrat society. As such it cannot directly dictate to employers who to employ. However, it can employ the work permit process to guide employers towards hiring qualified Virgin Islanders.
Does it not occur to you that some of all you are actually INSULTING those ancestors who lived through and survived real slavery by suggesting that the BVI today with all its choice and all its fancy dress people and nice hair and make-up options and SUVs and choice of food and US passports and big bnank accounts and fat bags of cash under the beds and – all this damn STUFF and CHOICE that we have is NOT the same as slavery.
The only slavery I see around is a mental slavery that makes all you want to keep viewing the world from a victim perspective and you know what? It makes you victims. Watch the BVislanders who are successful and you'll notice they don't walk around blaming every outsider for everything that wrong. They just get on and deal with LIFE as it is NOW. They step UP to it and don' ask everyone who successful to step DOWN to a phoney victim level.
Trust companies - yes, some of them are treating BVIslanders bad and those that transgress must pay the price. But really, to take them out of the context of the international economy they exist to serve and expect them to treat BVIslanders as special needs people - you got to be joking? These entities exist to serve the selfish. They exist to help people avoid paying their fair share in rich countries. You really naive if you think their managers are going to come here and instigate some kind of positive discrimination.
Unfortunately, the REAL world reward gumption and if all a we don't got no gumption, we goin nowehere. You could sit under the tree shouting 'slavery!' every time things don't go our way, but that aint no fast track to nothing but long term depression.
From Emancipation in 1834 through the early 1960's, agriculture was king. Then in the mid 60's and 80's tourism and financial services, respectively, started to take root. Today, they are the core and twin towers of the economy. These two industries enable us to have a high standard of living and quality of life with one of the highest per capita income in the region. But this is all a mirage and can be missing leading and creating false sense of security for Virgin Islanders. The reality is that we did not effectively plan for the transformation from agriculture to services. E. Leonard has adroitly outlined the the causes and effects of the ineffective planning so I will not belabor the point other than to say that heavy, focused investment on human capital is a sound investment and yields positive returns. Empirical evidence shows that countries that invest heavily and wisely on human resources typically have higher economic growth and higher GDP than countries that do not or invest less. The key driver for this success is education and training.
The BVI is not blessed with minerals, metals, or other critical resources to develop an industry to create a product that the rest of the world needs so that we can earn hard currency to promote economic development. The reality is that the only resource that we have is our people. And our survival depends heavily on investment on human capital. Again, education is the key.
The education trumpet needs to be sounded throughout the BVI from east to west and north to south; it needs to be sounded in every nook and cranny through the BVI. It has to be an all hands on deck effort. It must be partnership among government, parents, businesses, students and the community. We need to reboot the education system and increase the focus on science, technology, engineering,and math(STEM). There is an education divide between Virgin Islanders and non-Virgin Islanders. And until we eliminate or narrow this divide we will be left wondering what happen. All is not lost. But we need to act quickly and purposefully, for if we wait too much longer it may be too late. We have to build on the sacrifices of our foreparents.
Increasingly, as the word slavery is used in any context, many of us go into cardiac distress as if we are a shame of the horrible conditions and treatment that our foreparents had to endure. Well, slavery is an integral part of the BVI; it is in our DNA. We should not let slavery consume every microsecond of our our lives. But on the other hand , we cannot bury our heads in the sand like ostriches and pretend it did not happen. Instead, we should embrace it and learn from our forefathers experience and dedicate ourselves from being either physically or mentally enslaved again. The African diaspora in the Caribbean must work collaboratively to prevent this. Moreover, the Jews do not pretend that the Holocaust did not happen; they work collaboratively to avoid a repeat. Just this this week the Israeli prime minister while addressing the UN drew a redline timeline for preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Only the Yachting industry in the tourisim sector is dominated by Expats everything else is owned and either leased or ran by locals. The only exception is the resorts but even a few of them are owned by locals. I wish people would get their facts straight before ranting yet here I am doing the very same lol!
Tourism and financial services are core economic sectors yet the local population is not key players in the industries. They provide the labour but their representation at senior management levels are lacking. Ownership in the industries is also lacking. Ownership=control. Further, we also provide some hotel accommodations. Nonetheless, we are bit players in both industries. But the reason for being bit players are in the mirror.