Events continue to undress us and it is painful to accept when we realize how high flown BVI was for a season.
Ernesto, as hurricanes go, was a non-event but it showed our soft underbelly. We lost too many trees and the shrubs no longer hide indiscriminately disposed garbage.
The infrastructure continues to be stressed. Water accumulates in Town as if it were a riverbed and the consistency of this occurrence tells us that we need a sustainable solution.
Perhaps it is time to call in the experts for It is unfair, especially to commercial interests, to have to repeatedly suffer water damages.
We have challenges with the electricity infrastructure which has left us in the dark for longer than consumers thought necessary. We do not even mention water and the internet.
But the government did a marvelous job cleaning the roads after Ernesto. The Works Minister could have benefitted from the loan guarantee we rejected.
Politico was unfair to us following the sentencing of Fahie. It, and the outside world, has judged the Territory by the actions of a single individual.
Its editor refuses to believe that the financial services sector of the Territory is one of the best regulated in the world. And some British Senators and Members of the Commons, concur.
And although the rule of law caught up with Fahie, it is not enough for them. All BVI must be condemned and made to suffer perhaps for daring to be a worthy competitor in the international business arena.
Ironically, it was Fahie who always said that if we refuse to police ourselves then others will do it for us.
And the British, who get several bites of the cherry, have been policing us through the COI.
Strangely, the British chair the cabinet, agree fiscal and other policies, have administrative oversight of the courts, send our budget to London for approval, take direct reports from the independent arms of government like the Chief Auditor, hold responsibility for the police and the penal system, hold responsibility for the civil service; The list of their responsibilities is long.
But they also get to call commissions of inquiry on the Territory as if they were not central to its administration and decision making.
And we fear that when our legislators wake up to the kind and quality of laws they are being forced to pass, rapidly, to satisfy the lone COI Commissioner and his employers, they will owe deep explanations to the public whose opinions are largely absent from the process.
But the British are satisfied so perhaps, we are staring good governance in the eyes.
And yet it would require a reckless optimism for anyone to believe that the territory is moving in the right direction and that the COI is not serving a valuable purpose.
For, if the 13 refuse to govern judiciously, commissions of inquiry will litter our future.
But, more imminent, are the dangers that still lurk in natural disasters since we are heading to the peak of the 2024 hurricane season.
We use our Fridays to reflect.
Happy Friday!