His Excellency Governor Ric Todd would like to thank the several hundred people who attended his public meetings across the Turks and Caicos family islands over the past few weeks.
The series of six public meeting concluded at the Gustavus Lightbourne Sports Centre, Providenciales, last night Wed, 22 Feb 2012. Other meetings were held in Grand Turk, Salt Cay, and North, Middle and South Ciacos throughout January and February.
The purpose of the meetings was twofold. Firstly, the Governor believes that the people of the TCI should be given an opportunity to hear directly from him about the work of the Interim Administration. He promised at his inauguration to meet more regularly with the people across all of the Islands. Secondly, given the importance of the Interim Administration’s milestones, that he should update the people in person about the good progress being made.
While the Provo meeting was perhaps the most boisterous of the six sessions, the Governor believes that the meeting was extremely worthwhile, providing him with an opportunity to respond directly to questions about the economy, immigration, the transfer of £10m from the NIB, and, of course, progress against the milestones.
“I believe that it is important that during my term as Governor that I try to develop meaningful two way communications with the widest possible variety of stakeholders including politicians, party officials and supporters, community leaders and private individuals from across the TCI,” said Governor Todd.
“While the various parties involved might not agree with each other’s positions, I am determined that we can and do meet to discuss issues of mutual concern in a respectful and constructive fashion. Amongst the excitement and exuberance of last night I genuinely believe that good progress was made towards achieving this and improving the quality of our ongoing dialogue.”
During last night’s meeting the Governor took the opportunity to reemphasise the importance of achieving a fiscal surplus by March 2013 and how this was an essential first step towards bringing down and eradicating the Islands’ debt which currently stands at $189m. To achieve this he accepts that recent tax rises affect those on lower incomes the most, but points to many reason to be more optimistic about the economy, citing expansion at the airport, Digicel’s newly announced $8.5m investment in the country, record visitor numbers and a sound plan to reduce the running costs of Government.
The Governor recognised the concerns of people at all the meetings over the issues relating to becoming a TCI Belonger. He expressed his confidence that the Consultative Forum led public consultation, which has been extremely well supported, will produce positive proposals acceptable to Islanders over the next few weeks and months which will establish a clear, simple, transparent pathway to achieving citizenship. Other immigration related issues, such as work permits, will be addressed through the creation of the five new ministries in the TCI Government.
He also clarified that all British Officials and advisors present in the Territory are paid for by the UK and not the people of the TCI; that the Police Marine Unit is up and running.
