Mr L. Allen Wheatley, a former financial secretary, explained that Government was not willing to agree to his proposal and that he was not prepared to take a loss on his first investment hence the snag that ensued and subsequent quashing of the arrangement for him to supply fish and seafood and two Walk-in-freezers to the BVI Fishing Complex. According to a Deed of Agreement and Release made between Mr Wheatley and Government on January 11, 2013, the contractor has agreed to repay the some $34, 397.50 deposited to him. Photo: Provided

The agreement was entered into in January 2011 and according to a Deed of Agreement and Release made between Mr Wheatley and Government on January 11, 2013, the contractor has agreed to repay the some $34, 397.50 deposited to him for the supply of 2000lbs of fish and sea food and the supply of the two freezers

“That is very accurate. There was a mutual agreement on the terms that could not be mutually agreed so we decided to settle on a return of the deposit that was made,” Mr Wheatley confirmed to Virgin Islands News Online.

Mr Wheatley, a former financial secretary, explained that Government was not willing to agree to his proposal and that he was not prepared to take a loss on his first investment hence the snag that ensued and subsequent quashing of the arrangement.

“I have been a supplier to the BVI Fishing Complex of fish imported from Santo Domingo on more than one occasion so that was not the first time. But what transpired in that particular scenario is that Government wanted some management expertise to be facilitated at the fisheries and given my former background they said that I could, as a consultant, help.  So the agreement that we made was that we would have a series of orders where I would take the profit from my orders and reinvest in the BVI Fishing Complex.”

Mr Wheatley further stated that the first step was that Government would order some fish, pay for the freezers and he (Mr Wheatley) would use his profit to cover the cost of the freight and the installation of the freezers. “And as we go along we would use more orders to basically build up the infrastructure, MIS system and the likes at the fisheries complex because at some point they were interested in getting to the stage of some element of privatisation and they were looking at bringing it up to speed and who would be interested and if I wasn’t interested they would look at other people and scenarios and what’s not.”

The businessman stated that Government did make a deposit on the purchase of the freezers and the purchase of the fish and sea food, so there were two separate purchase orders. “However, the process was always conditional that these things would be facilitated by repeat orders and, knowing the Government, in my proposal I clearly stated that I wanted a commitment to three orders at the minimum before I would reinvest my profit in the fishing complex. Other than that I would be working for a loss, which makes no business sense. And they were unwilling to put it in writing but wanted me to go ahead and supply the fish and install the freezer, on good faith. I told them it was against Government practice and it is against commonsense. At no point in time could we come to an understanding, knowing the world, I could not just do this based on a verbal agreement.”

Mr Wheatley said he then sent a proposal to Government stating his terms, which they agreed to but Government would not reciprocate it into a contract “so I neither had a contract, whether petty contract or otherwise. So I had no legal grounds to stand on to say well what I had put in my proposal they had a commitment to me to do anything further so I would have ended up with a loss. And therefore, from the former manager, we went through this process, the PS changed, there was a number of staff changes and even Government changes and at nowhere along the line was anyone willing to honour the agreement that I took in writing to them.”

“So when the new government came in they basically said, seeing this is going nowhere they just want to cancel any previous arrangement made by the former government and have the monies returned so I said well if that’s the case then fine,” Mr Wheatley continued.

He made it clear that there was never any threat of court action to have him repay the deposit as has been rumoured. “My documentation was intact so there wasn’t any issue about anything, it was just that at the point when we could not come to a common understanding that I was not going to do this and take a loss in the absence of documentation, it went to the AG chambers, they tried to negotiate it but at that point it seemed the Government had lost interest because there was a new Government at the time when it got to that stage so therefore they had no interest in continuing what the previous government had started so it became something that simply had to be quashed.”

Asked what happened to the monies deposited by Government to Gemini Import and Export, Mr Wheatley said “some of it was used to deal with setting up a couple of things. One, I made a deposit to my suppliers to secure fish. Part of it was to coordinate a trip to Santo Domingo so Government officials could see the fishing process, and some of the money was used in relation to dealing with that and other administration expenses. So, some of the money was used up in basically setting up the whole process of the fish order, the freezer order and a trip to Santo Domingo.”

According to the Deed of Agreement and Release, Government, following months of discussions, telephone conversations and emails with the contractor, has made the decision to bring the discussions and the said contract to an end, and to demand the return of the total sum of $34,397.50 paid to the contractor.

Under the same Deed of Agreement and Release, the contractor is required to pay to Government by installments, the sum of $2,000.00 per month for the next successive 14 months (first payment was to be made on Feb. 1, 2013), with a final installment of $1,000.00 to be paid on the 1^st of the 15^th month, unless the total sum of $34,397.50 is repaid sooner.

“It’s very unfortunate that we weren’t able to work it out in the sense of the whole scenario but at the end of the day I am a businessman and whatever business I do I go on it to make a profit, whether its short term or long term, and to get involved in a business venture that is automatically going to make a loss with no potential for me to recover the loss then that is not a good business investment,” Mr Wheatley concluded.

Despite the failed arrangement, the local businessman, who ran unsuccessfully as an independent candidate for a Seventh District seat in the November 2011 elections, is not discouraged and intends to continue investing in the fishing industry on a private level.