BVI poorer than before, rich on paper but residents suffering
“I am seeing more poverty in this territory now than I have ever seen before and yet there are people who believe things are good,” Fraser said while contributing to the parliamentary debate on the Beneficial Ownership Search System (BOSSs) Amendment No. 2 Act of 2019.
“Those same people who are around saying things are good – unless they are pushing drugs – check their bank account. That should not be. Why do we settle for nothing … [or] for second best as a people?”
He continued: “You have over 400,000 companies registered in the Virgin Islands. I’ll give you a simple statistic to wake you up. Of those 400,000 plus companies that are registered in the Virgin Islands, 11,700 of them own 23,000 properties in the United Kingdom that are valued at $63 billion. Those are companies registered right here, what do we get from each of those companies — $450 a year for registration? When they open the company, they pay another $1,000 to register it, and we are happy.”
