The schedule for the final round of consultations with Turks and Caicos Islanders and residents to obtain their views on the proposed constitutional changes has been issued.
While meetings are planned for every populated island, including tiny Salt Cay with less than 100 residents, no meeting is scheduled for Providenciales (Provo), with a population of 25,000. Instead, the constitutional review team has opted to not face islanders but conduct a call-in radio show.
This has been viewed by many in the TCI as a move to avoid a repeat of the confrontations that occurred when constitutional consultant Kate Sullivan conducted her second round of meetings. Sullivan’s recommendations were burned in a parking lot and locals, angered by her recommended changes, spoke out loudly.
Sullivan and Governor Gordon Wetherell were also targeted at the Provo airport when Britain’s Minister responsible for the Overseas Territories, Henry Bellingham, arrived to announce that elections scheduled for July 2011 were being postponed.
The constitution, which was revised in 2006, was suspended in part on August 9, 2009, when Britain imposed direct rule over the Turks and Caicos. The interim government is headed by Wetherell, who took up his post in July 2008 but is due to demit office no later than August this year.
The decision to not have meetings in Provo is also being viewed as another sign that the interim government and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London are seeking to impose their will on the future running of TCI affairs.
Douglas Parnell, leader of the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) immediately forwarded a very strong letter to Bellingham, objecting to the decision to skip meetings n Provo.
Parnell is reported to have told Bellingham that not having public meetings in Provo was unacceptable and, in his view, a move to divide the islands and islanders.
Parnell also said the Interim government has been a disappointment. The PDM leader further expressed concern that the promise of a new deal for the overseas territories by the British Conservative-led coalition government has yet to be seen.
It has been learned that Sharlene Cartwright Robinson, a vocal member of the Consultative Forum, has also sent a letter to London complaining about the decision to avoid meetings in Provo.
