During the signing of the Protocol on Effective Financial Management with Premier Smith in the BVI recently, Bellingham said when the current government took power the country’s finances had been “badly stretched”. And prior to Bellingham’s comments, the premier said the government mismanaged the finances of the territory when it was in power, the BVInews.com report said.
However, O’Neal said Bellingham and the premier need to stop saying this and produce the facts.
“I do not agree with that at all,” O’Neal said. He added: “As I told one fellow who asked me about that, I told him to ask Mr. Bellingham to give you the facts. You could look through the various expenditures and see where every effort was made to get value for money, for example, we had some very urgent expenditure to get assistance for the police force – eight men from the United Kingdom.”
“I believe that some are still here helping us to keep law and order and security, which was needed because some elements appeared to be getting out of hand, and we had to be careful that investors, tourists and the people of these islands wanted to be assured that security and law and order is there. If it is said that monies spent on things like that was bad financial management then what would have happened if we did not do it, would have been worse, and so I don’t know why they keep saying that.”
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