| Party leaders take issue with Bellingham statements | | Print | |
| Written by Richard Green/richard@fptci.com | |||
| Thursday, 21 July 2011 09:33 | |||
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Political party leaders were not happy with some of Overseas Minister Henry Bellingham’s statements and positions on election issues and claims that billions of dollars of Crown land were undersold by previous governments. Progressive National Party Leader Clayton Greene said he and the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands were disappointed that Bellingham would not set a date for the next elections, although Bellingham said he is optimistic that elections will be held next year. On his recent visit, Bellingham was “not, in our view, speaking with the certainty that characterized his language when we met in London last month. In the circumstances, we make it clear that we have no confidence that elections will be held in 2012, and we encourage every Turks and Caicos Islander to continue to be vigilant and agitate for the return of representative government to our country,” Green said. Greene also was concerned that political parties won’t be able to make appointments to the Electoral Boundaries Commission as they could in the past, “but we expect and have made clear to the minster the need for political parties to be involved in that process in a meaningful way.” Both Greene and People’s Democratic Movement Leader Doug Parnell objected strongly to allowing the interim government to draft laws setting the conditions and procedure for becoming Turks and Caicos Islanders and allowing some of them to vote in the next elections. “The Progressive National Party’s position is that the interim administration ought not to grant such status to any individual other than those persons who qualify through marriage or adoption,” Greene said. “In London we agreed the minimum requirements for the same, and it should now be a matter for an elected government whether, and to what extent, those minimum requirements should be enlarged by legislation.” Parnell agreed that setting out laws to grant islander status with the right to voted is no business of the interim government. While the revised Constitution sets out two conditions for islander status, “there are other things that would be laid down in an ordinance, but those other conditions must be put in place by the hands of Turks and Caicos Islanders who are elected by the people who represent them, not by an administrative body who does not have the mandate to really parcel out the status of our nationality. “We’ve asked them to clarify their position on that because it’s really an act of bad faith, and it is one that we will challenge legally,” Parnell said. Parnell also took issue with the interim government for not allowing voter registration now for people who already are eligible to vote. “The minister gave the impression that they won’t open the elections office for new registrations until there’s a process in place for the grant of Turks and Caicos Islander status,” Parnell said. “I think he is departing from previous views where the preconditions would be set up for someone being put on the path for grant of status, and seems to intimate that now they are looking to make those preconditions minimum conditions, which they are not.” In November, Crown land advisor John Llewellyn estimated that his review of government land grants had a real value of nearly $1 billion but reaped significantly because of government discounts. Bellingham said he was told that $2.5-5 billion was lost to the TCI because of prior Crown land sales. Both parties questioned Bellingham’s information. “We raised this matter with the minister, and he has instructed the governor to issue a statement clarifying his position,” Greene said. “We do not feel that a statement seeking clarification is good enough, and we have in correspondence asked that the minister go a step further and produce the methodology that Mr. Llewellyn used for arriving at his figures, with specific reference to those particular bits of property that are being questioned. Absent an ability to justify his figures the statement should be completely retracted.” Parnell also questioned the accuracy of Bellingham’s claim. “We simply ask them to make clear to the people of this country why they can make such a statement without providing facts as to how the land was undersold,” Parnell said. Parnell also took issue with Bellingham’s claims that the U.K. or the interim government were solely responsible for the airport expansion project and the creation of the integrity commission, both accomplished by elected government. “To come and make it seem as though the work on regulating political parties, that the surface has not even been scratched, is wrong,” Parnell said. “The legal framework to regulate political parties is already in place. It was done by the political parties.” As for the airport expansion, “The fact is that it was the last House of Assembly that passed the airport departure charge or bill that gave the Airports Authority the right to increase the tax on departing passengers up to $35,” Parnell said. “It was the work of all of us, the political government, the opposition, the House of Assembly, members of the interim government … so to come in and just act as though no one else had any hand in it is wrong.” Click here to read Greene's full statement on Bellingham's visit Click here to read Bellingham's complete speech
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