PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos Islands; Thursday, July 9th, 2009 – Earlier today, the Governor, HE Gordon Wetherell held a press conference at the Hilly Ewing Building in Providenciales to introduce Mr. Colin Roberts, Director for the Overseas Territories at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Mr. Phil Mason, Head of the Overseas Territories at the Department for International Development to the Turks and Caicos publics.
During their visit, Mr. Roberts and Mr. Mason have held discussions with the Hon. Premier Galmo Williams, Hon. Deputy Premier Royal Robinson, Leader and Members of the Opposition, senior TCIG officials as well as meeting the UK Government advisers who are in the TCI. Moreover, they have also had the opportunity to visit Grand Turk, Salt Cay and South Caicos, Islands which were most affected in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike last September 2008; and have taken the liberty to look at the state of preparation for the 2009 hurricane season; some of said discussions were with members of the Royal Navy - who are currently making a visit for that purpose as well.
At the press event, Mr. Roberts gave talk as to his role for coming to the TCI, and declared that he is accountable to British Ministers for ensuring the security and good governance for all United Kingdom Overseas Territories; adding, that essentially, he is accountable to the Minister of the Overseas Territories, Mr. Chris Bryant.
L to R: Mr Phil Mason, Head of OT, Dept for International Development, Mr. Colin Roberts, for the
Overseas Territories at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and HE Governor Gordon Wetherell
He then made mention his reason for being in TCI this week is to primarily assess the situation here following the decision by the British Government to suspend elements of the Constitution in order to respond to the findings by Sir Robin Auld of “serious corruption”, findings that were revealed owing to the Commission of Inquiry that took place at the beginning of the year.
“I’ve come here to make sure that all the necessary preparations are in place, and to discuss these matters with the Governor and his team; and also with many other people in the community here: politicians, businessmen and others.”
Roberts noted that said findings were deeply shocking to the British Government and to the British Parliament - and as a result, their Ministers have taken the decision that a radical response is necessary and “even though it is an extremely serious move to suspend the Constitution, that is the only appropriate way of dealing with the seriousness of the wrongdoing that appears to have taken place in the Turks and Caicos.”
“We also believe that this kind of action is absolutely essential to have credibility with the political community in the United Kingdom and indeed here; and to have credibility with the international business community you have to have a clear signal that problems here are being sorted out and it essential for the credibility of the future of the Turks and Caicos Islands,” said Roberts, affirming, “ We are very confident that this is the action that needs to be taken and we are very confident and determined to take that action.”
With regard to the Order in Council which is being delayed in coming into force, a number of tasks have been set, which is deemed achievable over the period of two years when the Constitution is suspended. The OT Director said the first objective is to restore the health of TCI public finances, and declared that they will not wait for the Order in Council to be brought into force. “We have already been working on it for some time to try and understand exactly what the situation is here, and everything we have discovered so far confirms the position that public finance here is in a very poor situation and this is most unfortunate considering the amount of wealth that has been moving through the territory in past years. It should be reflected in strong reserves and in a strong fiscal position; but it isn’t; there are no reserves, there is a large amount of debt and this all has to be brought back into balance and we’re working on it now and we will make it our business to ensure that this work is completed when the Governor assumes responsibility.”
Second, he made mention of some of the identified number of systemic problems which enabled the sort of wrong-doing revealed to take place as discovered by Sir Robin Auld, as it relates to crown land, the balance of constitutional powers, the absence of appropriate checks and balances, stating that they will “make it our business to ensure that these reforms are carried out.”
Third, the Overseas Territories Director stated that an equally important part of Sir Auld’s recommendations is that criminal investigations are set in motion against former Premier Michael Misick and four of his then cabinet Ministers. To this regard: “We will make sure that the law enforcement authorities of the Turks and Caicos Islands are ready and able to carry out this work, it is for them, not the British Government to carry out this sort of activity, but we will make sure that it happens and takes it due and proper course.”
Throughout all this, Roberts said the UK will be making some specific commitments on how to bring about transparency to the Turks and Caicos Islands Government, as they do believe that “there is a great opportunity here to make this perhaps the most transparent Government amongst all the Territories - perhaps compared with other jurisdictions around the world and we think that is extremely important that information about government finances, government proposals and the use of government money is made available to the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands so that they can see exactly how the territory is being managed and be able to express their views on those issues.”
The intervention will not solve all the problems of the TCI noted Roberts, as “there are many issues we will not be able to resolve in a two year period.” Further, he wanted to disquiet the notion that a “huge numbers of administrators and experts” would be descending on the TCI from the UK or elsewhere, as they do not believe that this is necessary.
“We believe that the Turks and Caicos Islands is a very capable community and we believe that the public service here has the resources to manage the affairs of the territory,” said Roberts, however, “what we will be doing is trying to identify those key areas where a little bit of additional expertise can help resolve the problems. We do believe that the capacity exist here in the territory to manage the affairs of the territory.” He added that he has been impressed by the natural resources of the TCI and the talent he has seen here, and is very sure the TCI has a very bright future.
“Though this is a very serious intervention, it one that is going to be one of short duration and we are absolutely confident that once we have fixed the specific problems which we have identified – Turks and Caicos will be able to resume the course of growing prosperity and self-government that it has followed in decades up ‘till now.”
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