By Deandrea Hamilton
Editor
#BVI, March 9, 2023 – Andrew Fahie, in April 2022 had been hit with scandalous money laundering and cocaine smuggling charges while visiting Miami, Florida. While people being charged with crime is fairly common, this was a stand-out matter because Fahie, exposed in an elaborate sting operation, was at the time the sitting Premier of the British Virgin Islands. It meant he had to step down as the country’s leader and the details of the take down brought heavy shame and roused suspicions about the islands which are an overseas territory of the UK.
Latest reports are, Fahie is hold up at his daughters’ Miami apartment, where he is on house arrest, wearing an ankle monitor awaiting to face judgement by trial but what of his beloved British Virgin Islands and its new premier.
Predecessor, Premier Natalio Wheatley, in a sit down interview with me while attending the closing press conference of the CARICOM 44th Regular Meeting of Heads of Government was candid.
“Right after we had the arrest of the former premier and we had the Commission of Inquiry report released to the public, things were dire. Morale was low and of course our international reputation was greatly damaged. But of
course, I, along with my colleagues, were able to restore some level of balance, some level of normalcy, stability, and that has assisted us greatly as we moved our national initiatives, as well as implemented reforms, and, I think that we’ve done a good job getting us to the point where we can now have elections, ” said Wheatley.
Elections for the British Virgin Islands are constitutionally due in May. Premier Wheatley further expressed the mere fact that there are general elections on the horizon is a victory for the BVI people.
He said, “We saw what happened in the Turks and Caicos.”
He was referring to the 2009 partial suspension of the TCI’s 2006 Constitution Order. It made impotent an elected government and ushered in, UK-Direct Rule which handed over to the UK-appointed Governor oversight of all government business. So bruised was the Turks and Caicos, also a British overseas territory by nearly an entire government administration caught up in an elaborate string of allegedly corrupt practices, that the Constitution was re-written to downgrade the power and opportunities of the elected officials.
It has led to the new 2011 Constitution of the Turks and Caicos Islands being labelled regressive. Only now, 12 years later is the United Kingdom considering returning specific powers to the hands of men and women voted into office.
British Virgin Islands was looking down the barrel of the same gun.
“We were able to benefit from the experience and the advice, and the assistance of the Turks and Caicos, which we are eternally grateful for, and, we were happy that we were able to avoid that, and we are happy that we have the assistance of the Turks and Caicos, in championing the cause of democratic institutions in the Caribbean,” said Wheatley.
Turks and Caicos took a bi-partisan stand and voiced objection to the United Kingdom exacting the same practice of a constitutional suspension on the British Virgin Islands; despite the alleged conspiracy involving Fahie and others.