Opposition Leader Marlon Penn believes that the government is wasting taxpayers’ funds with their new redevelopment plan for the Elmore Stoutt High School, stating that a sound plan already exist which previously went through a thorough process.
Penn made the comment during a recent interview with 284News where he said that under the National Democratic Party Administration, a plan for the school was created, approved and funded.
He pointed to a July 2017 publication by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) which approved a $9.28 million loan “to support education reforms in the British Virgin Islands.”
Among those reform plans included the construction of a multi-purpose complex, classrooms, and other minor works at the Elmore Stoutt High School; and the upgrade of science and technical and vocational education and training labs/workshops at the school.
In addition, the high school and the Virgin Island School of Technical Studies were to both receive equipment, tools and learning materials, as well as learning resources and assistive devices for students with special education needs.
Speaking on the new redevelopment plan under the Andrew Fahie led Administration, Penn said that a solid plan already exists for the development of the school.
He said as opposed to totally ignoring the existing plan, he believes modifications could have been made if the VIP Administration had any issues with the previous plan.
“What I would say is that government is a continuum and the monies that we spend in government are the people’s funds and I think we need to be a bit more responsible, particularly with the people’s funds. Now we’re talking about moving forward with major projects like this, that’s why it’s important to have a national strategy like this in this country going forward. And for the government now three years after, a fourth budget, to now talk about having a discussion about developing a plan, when there were plans that were done years ago,” Penn stated.
He added, “Monies were already allocated to develop these plans, funding was already allocated from the CDB to fund these plans. If there needs to be adjustments/modifications, then we do that. We can’t just continue to scrub hard the plans that are developed for this country, from the hard earned tax payers’ money and continue to move on in this direction. We can’t allow our country to throw away money when money is so scarce in these times.”
The public was already consulted in the previous plan
To further justify his stance on why there was no need for a new plan, Penn said that the previous plan developed under the NDP went through all the processes, including public consultation with all the necessary stakeholders.
The Opposition legislator believes the extensive measures taken to get the previous plan to the approval stage should have been noted and used as a foundation to build on the work that was already done.
He said, “At the end of the day it is the government. But the government also has to act responsibly in terms of the resources, especially when you have limited financial resources as a country and look at how can we for the best interest of the country, move forward in the development of the infrastructure of this country. There is only so much you can do in terms of the development of the high school and the infrastructure and a lot of those things we’re exhausted in the discussions and the development that was done not just from the Ministry of Education, but from the redevelopment of the country’s point of view.”
“We did extensive work prior to and after the hurricanes about redeveloping our infrastructure and redeveloping our economy and those discussions were done publicly with the input of the public. So it wasn’t that the former government did these things in a vacuum, they were done with the input of the public. We went from Anegada to Jost Van Dyke discussing these plans and these ideas with the public and persons agreed or expressed their opinions on the plans. So this is something that was done from the point of view of the public and the people,” Penn further explained.