This Is Wrong! Gov’t Faces Backlash Over $1M In Political Advisory Consultancies

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(PLTM) - Second District Representative, Hon. Melvin 'Mitch' Turnbull has taken a swing against the Virgin Islands Party (VIP) administration's decision to approve over $1 million to hire political consultants for Virgin Islands Party (VIP) ministers.

In a Facebook post this evening, Hon. Turnbull indicated that what is even more troubling is the fact that he knows vigorous attempts will be made to try to justify this apparently insensitive decision, which will be paid for by the people in these dismal times.

“Businesses haven’t been able to be open, people are struggling to pay their bills, feed and provide for their children and these are the types of decisions that are being made from a “Government that Cares??? “Is this Government working for you?” What I see this as is what I have been saying all along. It’s a walking, talking, breathing, moving contradiction,” Hon. Turnbull stated

The Cabinet of the Virgin Islands agreed on July 8th, 2021 that they would hire political advisors for the Ministers of Cabinet and to include the two Junior Ministers in the amount of $120,000 per year.

In essence, three advisors will be assigned to the Premier’s office and each Minister and Junior Minister will be assigned an advisor respectively.

Hon. Turnbull stated that if his math serves him correctly, that’s a total of nine political advisors at a cost of 120k per year not inclusive of benefits. This amounts to US $1,080,000 per year base, according to Hon. Turnbull.

“But just in case that number is incorrect, we could also assume that out of the three political advisors assigned to the Premier’s office, the Junior ministers will each receive one, so then we would be looking at 7 political advisors at 120k or 840,000 base salary. If I was to give an estimation of the benefits at a rate of 25% of the annual contract, it would equate to about 30k in benefits for a total of 150k per advisor or 1,350,000 for 9 advisors or 1,050,000 for 7 advisors,” Hon. Turbull explained.

He reminded the people of the Virgin Islands that the Cabinet of the Virgin Islands is made up of the Five Ministers - (Finance, Education, Natural Resources, Health and Transportation Works and Utilities and both the Governor and Attorney General serve as members, but neither has a vote so the decision rest solely on the five members listed above.

Help & Hurt Gov’t

Hon. Turnbull referred to the Virgin Islands Party (VIP) administration as a ‘help and hurt government’.

“They appear to be helping but their very next move hurts the people they are supposed to be helping. In my view, this administration is seemingly hiring political advisors to try to secure seats for the next election at the expense of the hurting people,” Hon. Turnbull stated.

He further questioned, “We have lost 22 persons which represent families of well over 2,000 people in this Territory within the last couple weeks and instead of making decisions to seek help from the UK to assist the drained and exhausted personnel in the Health Services Authority; who have gone above and beyond the call of duty and continue to sacrifice for our wellbeing, they hire speechwriters?

He stated that instead of putting funds in the social welfare fund to assist families whose children are going to bed hungry each night, they take up over a million dollars to hire researchers. According to Hon. Turnbull, instead of investing in the educational system which is failing due to understaffing and educators being underpaid, the Government has taken over a million dollars to try to help their campaign.

“Instead of assessing the needs of the families who have lost loved ones due to this pandemic who may have been the breadwinners and or contributed towards the security of their households, you take a million dollars and just throw it away? Because you sit in cabinet and feel you have the right to make these decisions and then tell the people about corporate responsibility and ignore the issues that are truly affecting the people you serve?” Hon. Turnbull questioned.

Hon. Turnbull also questioned the respect Government expects from the public to when they blatantly disrespect their education, their intelligence and plain common sense

“I have repeated this before, “there is nothing that can work itself out of a lie but the Truth.” And, “when you have a problem with money, money will always be your problem. This is just another decision that has been made by this administration that clearly demonstrates that something is terribly wrong and they have lost touch with who they are supposed to be serving. This is just wrong and must be addressed and corrected immediately,” Hon. Turnbull stated.

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