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ROAD TOWN, Tortola, VI- The churches in the Virgin Islands have come in for criticism from man of the cloth and former General Manager of the BVI Ports Authority (BVIPA) Mr Claude O. Skelton-Cline, who also said Hurricane Irma was judgement for the Territory.
“I also think that we need to look at this issue of it being judgement day as it relates to the churches. I am still dumbfounded, and here I am critic of myself who is intimately a part of church life and don’t know myself outside of church life, of how silent the church continues to remain in situations like these,” Mr Skelton-Cline said on his show Honestly Speaking, aired on ZBVI 780 AM on October 10, 2017.
Mr Skelton-Cline, who had Opposition Leader Hon Andrew A. Fahie (R1) as his guest, was at the time addressing some of the issues arising in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma that devastated the Virgin Islands on September 6, 2017, including the alleged unfairness in distribution of relief items and price gouging.
“Irma in particular was judgement for the BVI. This is not happenstance, this is not accidental, it was a judgement,” Mr Skelton-Cline stated, adding that the VI has to learn whatever lesson was intended.
Let the filthy be filthy still?
The former Ports Authority boss particularly spoke out against businesses that engaged in price gouging following Hurricane Irma.
“Two things have been pronounced to me. In times like these one or two things happen; either we become more of who we already were before Irma, so if you were greedy before Irma you become more greedy; and that’s why we see this tremendous amount of price gouging, where people were being taken advantaged of in their most vulnerable situations.
It was at this juncture that Mr Skelton-Cline expressed disappointment with the silence of the churches in post Irma.
“How can you be the moral voice that speaks clearly and lucidly about what ‘thus sayeth the Lord’? How do you have the spirit of the sons of Issachar, who has an understanding of the times, so that they know what the Virgin Islands have been? How do we keep from surrendering to whatever Government by whatever letters? You, me as men and women of God ought to be the mouth pieces of God that speak truth to power no matter who the power is, whether they are our friends or our family,” Mr Skelton-Cline stated.
Reports about price gouging have been rampant following Hurricane Irma, including on items such as generators, gasoline, groceries and electrical items.