| Milestones set, elections not before 2012 | | Print | |
| Thursday, 09 December 2010 09:58 | |||||||||||||||||||||
 Elections won’t be held before 2012 and only after a minimum of eight defined milestones are met, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Henry Bellingham MP, and Minister of State for International Development, Alan Duncan MP, said in a statement to the U.K. House of Commons today (Dec. 9).
The milestones include items such as implementation of a revised Constitution, political reform, financial stability, a transparent Belongership process, a new Crown land policy, significant process in both the special prosecution cases and public service reform. “It has become clear to this government since it assumed office that there is a serious and deteriorating problem in the Turks and Caicos Islands,” Bellingham stated, which must be solved before the territory can return to self-governance. Achieving these milestones will be a great challenge, he added. “As we now see things, the U.K. government will only be able to set a date for the elections when the milestones have been reached. We hope that this will happen in time for elections to take place in 2012.” When the U.K. took over governance of the territory in August 2009, it said the interim government hoped to have regularly scheduled elections in 2011. It soon became apparent to them this was not possible and Bellingham announced in September 2010 elections would be delayed. He said he would issue milestones by December that must be reached before they can take place. Bellingham said the eight milestones do not include everything that will have to be done before elections take place. “In general the U.K. government will have to be satisfied that the necessary reforms have been put in place to address the issues raised by the Commission of Inquiry, to prevent such maladministration being repeated, and to engender the confidence of the international community.” The U.K. also intends to “retain sufficient control over public finances” following elections, in order to ensure that the country emerges from its financial crisis as soon as possible, and that the temporary package of U.K. support is no longer needed, he added. The U.K. government has already loaned the country in excess of $15 million with much more needed to its problems. “It has become clear to U.K. Ministers that the fiscal picture in Turks and Caicos Islands represents an unacceptable collapse in the fiscal governance of the Territory, which needs urgently to be addressed.” The government received its first short-term loan in July when the Secretary of State for International Development had to step in financially in order to allow the country to meet unavoidable commitments including staff salaries for the Islands’ police, health and education services, Bellingham explained. A large medium-term loan to keep the government running until the financial crisis can be resolved is now in the works. This financial support was not without strings. In September, Caroline Gardner was appointed as Chief Financial Officer to the interim government, tasked with addressing the countries mounting debts and helping the country to get back on sound financial footing. In his statement, Bellingham said that Gardner will now have the responsibility of putting the country on a course towards a sustainable fiscal “surplus” in the financial year 2012/13. “Reaching these milestones will require time, care and hard work by the U.K. and the TCI government, and particularly by the TCI Public Sector,” Bellingham stated. He promised public consultation on a number of issues and said he hoped for the engagement of the Islands’ political parties.
Click here to read the full statement
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