Member of the UK Parliament Andrew Rosindell has issued a statement that has found support in the Turks and Caicos Islands and other British overseas territories. According to Rosindell, the Overseas Territories (OTs) ought to have elected representation in the UK Parliament.
“We give our 21 Overseas Territories nothing,” the British MP said. “All they have is an informal all party group of which I am proud to be chairman.”
 |
|
British MP Andrew Rosindell
|
Rosindell is chairman of the Turks and Caicos All Party Group, which consists of members of the three British political parties who have concern for the remaining British OTs and the relationship between these small territories and Britain.
Since Britain’s Conservative Party took office in May 2010 as part of the coalition government, Overseas Territories Minister Henry Bellingham and Rosindell, who sources say work closely together, have both promised a new, more supportive relationship between Britain and its remaining dependencies.
In the Rosindell statement, the outspoken MP also said, “We have a democratic hole, with hundreds of thousands of people for whom we make laws, ultimately govern and on whose behalf we can declare war, make foreign policy and sign international treaties. We have substantial control over their domestic affairs… those territories that have sterling are bound by much of our own economic policy... Although the Crown dependencies and the Overseas Territories are not part of the UK they are substantially influenced and ultimately governed by this (UK) parliament, so it is wrong for them to have no voice at all.”
Rosindell’s chief concern, the Turks and Caicos Islands, which employs the US dollar as its currency, is experiencing serious financial setbacks as a result of an allegedly corrupt elected government, whose former ministers are to begin facing corruption charges at trials set to begin in February.
This TCI government was led by the Progressive National Party (PNP) and its now disgraced premier Michael Misick. During the later Misick years, a revised 2006 constitution gave his government greater autonomy, which was allegedly used to strip the islands of hundreds of millions of dollars through corrupt land dealings, while three British governors – all appointees all of the former Labour government-run Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) -- were present and responsible for approving all land sales over 5 acres in size. One controversial transaction on the island of Middle Caicos represented the sale of 2,500 acres of prime development land for 5 percent of its estimated value and seemingly approved by British Governor Richard Tauwhare.
The three governors involved included Governor Gordon Wetherell, who in August 2009 enforced an Order In Council resulting from an earlier Commission of Inquiry imposing direct rule of the TCI by Britain and partially suspending the 2006 constitution. A new constitution rescinding some of the local authority of the earlier document has now been prepared after wide consultation with islanders.
These consultations included a local TCI All Party Group and a National Conversation Exercise, which resulted in a report expressing the views of a cross section of islanders authored by the interim government’s Consultative Forum member TC Islander Sharlene Cartwright Robinson. Robinson’s report was commended by Britain’s Director of the Overseas Territories Colin Roberts, who had it distributed to the other OTs.
Both of these constitutional reform exercises resulted from initiatives of the then leader of the previous TCI opposition, the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), Douglas Parnell.
Parnell himself sponsored a number of missions to London, where the then PDM leader networked with Rosindell and other members of the TCI All Party Group.
Local business interests also sponsored a trip by Rosindell to the TCI, where he and his aide Starbuck Coleman conducted a meeting at the PDM headquarters in Providenciales, when Rosindell reiterated his Conservative Party’s agenda to improve the relationship between the UK government and all the Overseas Territories.
During the then Wetherell administration, a loan for $260 million was arranged with guarantees by Britain. However, in both the Wetherell-led government and under current Governor Todd, budget targets have yet to be met as predicted. This has resulted in a growth of the TCI government’s debts. High taxes imposed in an attempt to balance the budget have caused businesses to close. This, joined with the layoff of numerous government workers added in the Misick years, has created massive unemployment and lack of inward investment.
Elections scheduled for July 2011 have been rescheduled for 2012 but may require a second reschedule due to eight required milestones laid down by Minister Bellingham, the most difficult being the need to achieve a balanced budget by 2013.
Todd, the first governor appointed under Britain’s coalition government, is seen to be rushing to meet the milestones and the 2012 election deadline.
