Chief Minister dismayed by alleged interception of personal e-mail

By Mellica McPherson

Chief Minister, Dr. the Hon. Daniel Orlando Smith is calling on the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Hon. Ralph T. O’Neal to accept full responsibility for what the Chief Minister termed as an unlawful conduct of the Committee as it relates to the personal email of the Chief Minister that was appended to the Glover Park Report. Furthermore, Dr. Smith is also calling on the Chairman to reveal the source of the interception. He said that if this is not done “the PAC under his (the Chairman’s) leadership will be held to have directly engaged in the unlawful conduct of intercepting and interfering with the Chief Ministers private correspondence.”

According to the Dr. Smith, “just last week the Hon. Leader of the Opposition stood in the Legislative Council and was asked a simple question: Where did he get personal e-mails sent to my personal account? How did these personal e-mails fall into his hands, and what did the Opposition do? They refused to tell the people how private e-mails came to be in their hands,” Dr. Smith said.

The BVI Leader explained that the private e-mail between himself and other person or persons that was attached to the PAC Glover Park Report was not obtained with his permission or with the permission of the person or persons with whom the communication was made. Therefore, Hon. Smith pointed out that the e-mails could have only been obtained through improper and unlawful means: “The PAC cannot disassociate itself from knowledge of the source of the interception of the communications and must therefore be accountable for what can only be considered wrongful conduct,” Hon. Smith said.

To that end the Chief Minister disclosed that Government is considering what appropriate steps to take to deal with known unlawful interference. “I stand here for the last time to ask, who stole those e-mails, and how did they come to fall into the hands of the Opposition.” “It saddens me more than I can say that it has come to this. I can think of nothing I would rather do than to make this whole mess go away, but my friends, what is at stake here is nothing less than the integrity of our community. If we stand back and allow theft to go on unacknowledged, if we allow falsehoods to be taken as the truth; if we allow deception to win out—then we are not simply undermining our political institutions—we are selling out our most cherished values,” he said. The Chief Minister went on to say that “when elected officials refuse to reveal how an unlawfully acquired correspondence happens to wind up in their hands—they are bearing false witness,” he pointed out.

“The people of the BVI must know this and know this well – whether you support this Government or not – you should always feel confident that in this Government we do not hide things; we do not manipulate the facts; we do not cover the truth.

“The reason we have and always will be this forthcoming is simple: We have absolutely nothing to hide. This Government has done nothing wrong. When we were in the Opposition, we wanted to hire the best communications company we could to help us win an election. And when we were elected to Government we wanted to hire the best communications company we could find to help us move the Territory forward.

“That is exactly what we told the people of the BVI we were going to do – and that is exactly what we did. I cannot say it any simpler than that.

“The Opposition acts as if The Glover Park Group is some sort of secretive organization operating in the shadows. One member of the Opposition even suggested that the entire Glover Park Group is just one foreign national living in Washington, DC.

“Ladies and Gentlemen: here is how secretive The Glover Park Group is: you can find them on the internet at www.gloverparkgroup.com. Visit the site at your convenience. You can also reach them by telephone. Their phone number is 202-337-0808.

“There is nothing secret, there is nothing mysterious, there is nothing hidden. It is all out in the open as plain as day. That is how we have operated and how we shall always operate. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to compare these actions to the actions of the Opposition,” the Chief Minister said.

Chief Minister Smith elaborated on the Public Accounts Committee Report and its accuracy by saying: “I would like to call again on the Opposition to explain how it is that the minutes of the PAC meetings came to be doctored and altered before they were submitted before Legislative Council.  Critical information given by the then Acting Financial Secretary to the effect that once the Financial Secretary or Ministry of Finance approves a transaction within the approved Budget there could be no issue of misuse of a Subhead, was completely left out of the Report! Why was this done if not to deceive the public? I listened with interest as one Honourable Member, during the Opposition’s charade called a press conference tried to explain this omission away. Again I ask: who changed these documents? Under whose orders were they acting? And what purpose were they seeking to achieve in these alterations?”