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'You cannot judge a nation by one bad experience'- Hon Vincent O. Wheatley
“That applies to every business in the BVI. This philosophy that I can come and do business in the BVI and I don’t have to hire a single BVIslander if I don’t wish to do so and nobody can make me hire a BVIslander. This is something I do not appreciate at all,” he said on Tuesday, August 18, 2020, during the Honestly Speaking radio programme with Claude O. Skelton-Cline on ZBVI 780AM.
“It was a principle that I had to kill, that I was seeing taking root in the atmosphere,” he pointed out.
Minister Wheatley said persons painting locals as "lazy” and “incompetent” is wrong.
“You cannot judge a nation by one bad experience. You maybe got a bad employee some years ago, you going to paint a whole nation of people to be like that? No, I had to take it out of the atmosphere! I cannot let those words go down in the spirit of my people! If you are going to do something and you had one bad experience, I tell those companies, if you found a bad BVIslander, I apologise, move unto the next one, and maybe the next one, and maybe the next one, maybe you may find two dozen.”
Phenomenal locals exist
To strengthen his point, Hon Wheatley pointed out that there are some phenomenal locals who exist.
“What about all those BVIslanders that are doing phenomenal work in the BVI, you don’t hear anyone singing their praises, and there are tones upon tones of them who gives amazing, world-class, first-class top-class work, but the minute you find one bad BVIslander, one you don’t like or whatever, all of a sudden all of them lazy, all of them stupid, they all incompetent, they all need training, they don’t have etiquette, all of a sudden they don’t know anything,” he stated.
“To perpetuate that thinking, that philosophy upon the whole society and even your own people afraid to hire your own people,” he added.
Recently, local businessman Hezekiah E. Maddox revealed on social media that he was shutting down his ice cream business because the Labour Department was forcing him to hire locals.
Mr Maddox said while the move would be good for the country, it was not a good “fit for our business,” he said in a post on August 10, 2020.
He said: “Before we are forced to lower our standards and add to the already poor customer service climate in our beloved BVI, we will respectfully close our doors.”
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39 Responses to “'You cannot judge a nation by one bad experience'- Hon Vincent O. Wheatley”
yes..same thing here West.....its a different person now who just ignores you...no time of day for us who.ve been with him in the fight all the way..now seems like we dont exist any more...so sad...so very sad
And if locals are here , marking time , under employed in various sectors , should they Help to replace these Expats .... who will replace THEM?
I don’t like talk without support . Where are the numbers , statistics. Is the a single social scientist in the BVI. What is the loss of revenues when these expats are replaced with these fabled locals ?
How will the revenue be recouped ?
Clearly The success of these BVI owned businesses is predicated upon expat labour force .
Are these businesses going to be successful paying higher salaries to local staff?
If it’s cheaper to Hire locals because of ‘no rent , travel and spousal expenses, car allowances ‘for high level jobs... pray tell why was it not done before . Have employers been in that ‘crunk’?
For low level BVI work force .... why were they not employed in the first place?
Perhaps my perspective is unbalanced . Talk to me my BVI ppl
Stop running around and make solid
Decisions ! Too much flip flop
Soon alot more you got to go back and change !
As a leader you need to show leadership
With all the negativity as to what will happen to the BVI because the government want to do right by its people will never prosper. Where in the world do you go and find that outsiders dominate the work force 70% to 30% locals? That's crazy if you ask and to all the Virgin Islanders who think it is not a good idea to hire locals, you better don't have children and have them look for employment 10-15 years from now because the ratio may very well be 95% to 5% locals.
What "idiocracy" would it be when locals can't get jobs in their own country simply because the jobs are given to outsiders.
Open up. Remove the requirement for trade licenses. Let free trade and competition blossom. Quality will out.