Chief Minister Pursues Email Enquiry

By Mellica McPherson

Director of Communications, Sandra Ward recently told The Island Sun newspaper that “the Chief Minister is relentless in getting an enquiry to determine how anyone accessed his personal email.”

This newspaper, also spoke with Chief Minister, Dr. the Hon. D. Orlando Smith, on Tuesday to find out how the enquiry was progressing. Hon. Smith said “This is a matter that deals more with the Legislative Council, and at the moment we are looking at the Legislative Council Laws as it relates to electronic media, and consider possible modifications if possible to ensure that such an occurrence never happens again.”

However, last Friday (27 October) Member of the Opposition, Public Accounts Committee (PAC), and First District Representative, Hon. Andrew Fahie commented on the remarks made by Chief Minister, Dr. the Hon. D. Orlando Smith about the issue of the Chief Minister’s personal emails that were appended to the PAC’s Glover Park Report.

On a ZBVI Radio broadcast that was aired on Friday 27 October, Hon. Fahie pointed out that, “In appendix seven of the Glover Park Report there is an email that was downloaded on 25 June, 2002.  This email was written on 30 April, 2002 to Orlando Smith, oyster@surfbvi.com; from Arik Ben-Zvi, and attached was a draft of the motion and the speech for the vote of no confidence to be delivered by Dr. Smith against the Virgin Islands Party Government.”

“My people let me remind you of something here, this email that the Chief Minister is concerned about was downloaded in June 2002, just in case you forgot, in 2002 the Hon. Dr. Smith was not our Chief Minister, our Chief Minister was Hon. Ralph T. O’Neal,” Hon. Fahie explained.