Governor Dakin marks first year in office
During Premier Robinson's live National Address to the nation on 27 July, H.E. Governor Dakin delivered a speech to officially mark his first year in office.
It was appropriate during the early period of ‘Emergency Powers’, powers exercised in the Governors name, for me to regularly appear before you. I haven’t done so, for some time - for reasons I will explain in a moment - but in the past week as my first year as Governor drew to a close; as the borders opened and; as we saw the departure of UK military forces sent to support us while we were shut to the world - to be replaced by troops sent to support us as we enter Hurricane Season - it seems the right moment to take stock. It is anyway good to share this platform with the Premier today as a demonstration of public as well as private solidarity at this important time.
Stepping back for a moment, as we move from July to August 2020, it also seems to me we are moving into a new phase of our recent history – our ‘new normal’ – a normal that we may well have to sustain for some considerable time. I do hope at some point we will return to something more reminiscent of the freedoms we enjoyed as I arrived.
I’ve now been Governor for just over a year. On 15 July, last year, I swore an oath and spoke briefly to the House of Assembly, laying out how I intended to govern. I’m going to use that speech now as my guide as I report back to you, the people of TCI.
I’m going to talk to six themes: values that have guided me; my underlying approach to partnership with the UK; examples of this over the last year; my approach in Cabinet and towards the elected Government of the day; the work that has progressed on the three priorities I identified and finally; a reflection on the largest impression that has been made on me in the last year – that’s you the people of TCI – and why that gives me confidence over the next year.
I first promised I would govern through four values: ‘listening’; ‘caring’; ‘serving’ and being straight and through being straight being ‘clear’.
I’ve reminded myself of those values each day, and I’ve tried to live up to them every hour. I return to them now so you can judge whether these were just ‘four easy words’. As ever, ‘talking the talk’ is easy, ‘walking the walk’ far harder. For some I will have failed, perhaps I could never succeed, but for my part, I intend to try to hold true to these values, throughout.
In my first year, as I learn, the most powerful value has been “listening”. I must have had 10,000 conversations or interactions. That’s from school children and fishermen to bar owners and taxi drivers, to hoteliers and small businessmen and women. I’ve worshipped with pastors and congregations of almost every denomination and ethnicity. I’ve talked to criminals, judges, police and prison officers and spent time with tourists from across the world and citizens and residents from across all of our Islands. I’ve met with those who have suffered tremendous tragedy and those who are celebrating great achievement and enjoyed debate with some of my greatest critics and with those who are old and wise, or young and ambitious, and for good measure those who are old and ambitious and young and wise.
A great advantage of being Governor - indeed one of its great pleasures - is you can soak up the experience of many, and you can go and see issues that you have heard of but want to experience. Going to the problem or a challenge – or talking directly to the person who is in the eye of any particular storm - has always struck me as far more helpful than hearing about it third-hand.
And when I get to the problem I’m constantly reminded that these islands are rammed with ideas, talent, vision and eloquence but also often invisible suffering and quiet resignation. The amount of human capital on this Island is extraordinary - the challenge for us all is how to unlock it, and allow it all to grow to its full potential.
In that inauguration speech I said that I brought no policy with me from London. I didn’t. Some spent the early months of my time here trying to discern the hidden motive. There isn’t one. If there is one in the future, I won’t be shy in explaining it. For now I see my role as helping both the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the United Kingdom, develop a relationship of partnering, not parenting. I spend far more time explaining to London what TCI usefully needs, not telling or explaining to TCI what London wants. As a public you’ve heard very little from me on ‘the view from London’; I think the Premier would say the same.
But if I didn’t bring policy I did bring a thought - to “preserve and improve”. To me this is about constantly building – with TCI - serious capacity and capability – for TCI. I hope you have started to see that in the appointments I’ve made and the initiatives I’ve started or supported. To my mind, where we can build local capacity in partnership with the UK, we should seize the opportunity.
A very visible current example of that is the formation of the TCI Regiment. The Commanding Officer – Lieutenant Colonel Ennis Grant - has been appointed. With Royal Marine and TCIG support he is now close to finalising the selection of its Officers and Senior Non-Commissioned Officer’s. Three will go to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in September. They will, I know, do TCI proud. We intend to build this Regiment to be excellent.
We will be opening up to recruit what will become the Regiments ‘teeth’ – it’s reserve Marines – 40 in total – in or around September. They should be being employed operationally in the New Year. If you want to serve TCI, if you want excitement and camaraderie keep this future opportunity in mind. You can start to prepare now – get yourself as fit as you can. Build your speed, build your stamina, learn to do pull-ups, as many as you can, smash out those press-ups and see how many sit-ups you can do – and then keep improving. This is going to be a Regiment of Marines that can get the job done.
Apart from the Regiment the most obvious recent examples of seeking UK partnership has of course centred on the COVID-19 crisis. The Royal Air Force developed an air-bridge to TCI when no other carriers were flying. Through it the UK sent tons of medical consumables, Personal Protection Equipment and top of the range ‘closed ventilators’. It also sent the raw materials to build a national public health laboratory (more of this in a moment).
It sent military Doctors to support ‘TCI’s Team Health’. These worked with, and for, our local medical professionals, and to the Premier, while logisticians worked to help develop and manage processes. Planners worked with local officials – and members of my office - to support the Premier develop a whole of Government approach, an approach that bound Ministries with very different roles together in one mission: to stabilise our public health and then reopen the borders safely and efficiently.
The UK sent Marines to help protect our borders, a helicopter to patrol our waters and ships to patrol in the deep seas that surround us. While the Ministry of Defence provided the capability, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office paid for it.
Public Health England sent out some of their best staff, including for a protracted period Professor Ian Cumming, the CEO of all of Public Health England’s efforts in the Overseas Territory’s. He has prepared a comprehensive report, presented to the Premier, that turns this period from a medical crisis into a long-term opportunity to strengthen our overall health capability. The UK will help. He will return in October.
Back in late 2018, prior to the crisis, it was estimated it would take two years for us to build a national public health laboratory, and populate it with trained staff. We are one of the very few places in the world that built this capacity from scratch at time of pandemic - against a fiercely competitive global market - and we didn’t build it in 2 years but in 2.5 months. It was the equivalent of building a plane while flying it.
The laboratory is still adjusting, developing and growing - we can watch it improve daily. I think some in TCI thought this sort of testing capability was similar to taking a new laptop out of the box and switching it on – it is nothing like that. It’s deeply complex and very skilled. I want to be clear - and the likes of Dr Astwood our CMO and Dr Braithwaite from our hospital say it better than I ever can – but it’s been an extraordinary achievement for TCI to get to this point; very few others started from scratch in the face of a crisis. Be very proud TCI of this achievement.
While we normally think of national heroes in terms of our political leaders, in this pandemic our national heroes have also been those anonymously working, often into the small hours of the morning, wearing white lab coats. Samajeo and Nevis, who are the technicians in our laboratory - working every day with live samples of the virus - are two such heroes. I salute you.
Looking back to that first speech, of over a year ago, I paid tribute to the two excellent political leaders we have in TCI. Many countries in the world would want the quality of leader we have at the top of both of our political parties. From my involvement with both, nothing over the last year has changed that view. I’m lucky to be working with both – in their different capacities - and indeed I enjoy my time with both. I pay tribute to the Leader of the Oppositions wise counsel to me over the last year - and to the Premiers well-considered and decisive leadership at this time of crisis.
To give you some idea of the care and attention that we all in Cabinet placed in our collective decision-making - there were 30 hours of Cabinet, and 4 separate Cabinets - in the week or so before re-opening. That’s because we had difficult matters to weigh – needed to understand the detail - and were bringing different skills to the table as well as different perspectives from different Ministries.
It’s Cabinet, at time of crisis, where you understand that a Cabinet consensus – not a vote – is essential. How would it be if different Ministers walked out of Cabinet with diametrically opposing views as expressed through a vote? How would it be, at time of crisis, if the Premier and Governor were in different places? Consensus, particularly at time of crisis, allows the leadership of the country to be united – it is united - and that is worth a lot.
Again reflecting back on the last 12 months, back in March we imposed Emergency Powers virtually overnight. Those powers seriously constrained your freedoms - including the power of national curfew - and also allowed, in my name, laws to be passed. Those laws did require latter ratification in the House but nonetheless the ability to exercise law making, and curfew, are powers not to be taken lightly and ones I didn’t expect to be exercising a year ago.
I hope you were able to see, in the exercise of my powers, something I touched on in my inauguration speech. Throughout my life I have been a committed small ‘d’ democrat. I had, and I have, the greatest of respect for those who are prepared to stand before an electorate - and be judged by them.
It seemed to me, and it still does, important that in matters as fundamental as this it has to be the elected Government who leads, and is seen to lead. Health and the Economy are after all devolved matters. It’s the elected Government that must communicate not the unelected hence me stepping back once Emergency Powers and curfew had been properly established, and the situation considered by Cabinet stable.
It’s only through that process - which is the genius of democracy - that in the end the people can hold to account those who represent them and - through that representation - those who lead them. As a result I’ve seen my role in Cabinet – and always will - as supporting the elected government of the day deliver their manifesto within the law and Constitution.
In the final paragraphs of that first speech, in the House of Assembly, I said my three immediate priorities were: illegal immigration; serious crime and hurricane preparedness and that I intended to start work on them immediately. I did. After a year this is where we are.
The first step was to pull this together in an overarching National Security Strategy and appoint a TCI Islander as Permanent Secretary for National Security. As an aside, it was the resulting strategy that allowed TCI to make a compelling case - to the UK – and the Ministry of Defence in particular – that gained us the support we received while our borders were closed.
On illegal immigration an important first step was getting ever better at intercepting sloops and the fastest route to that was better co-ordination and collaboration across Government. Our Maritime Police and Immigration officials and wider national security officials are now very good indeed as is our relationship with international partners. The reason why the public now see so many photographs of over-laden sloops is not because we are failing but because we are succeeding. It’s the empty hulls on beaches – after their cargo has dispersed into the bush – that signals failure not them being arrested at South Dock.
And let’s not under-estimate just how hard this success was to achieve. Before arriving in our waters the Sloops have evaded concentric rings of defence provided by the US Coast Guard – including multiple aerial platforms - and when on station the Royal Navy. Many Sloops are turned back before they ever get to us, you just don’t see them, but when they do we in TCI are playing goal line defence – they have evaded a great deal before getting to us.
With those lines of defence improved – and better sown together - even more important therefore is the work that has started to properly attack the networks. That’s working and there will be developments to report on this very soon. Beyond that I now look forward to us, in the future, not only arresting those who profit locally from this trade, but where we also mount intelligence led operations to identify and arrest those who employ illegal immigrants here in TCI, no matter who that person or company is.
We can expend enormous energy and money stopping the sloops, repatriating those who risk their lives and who end up with no ability to ever come here legally - and we can arrest individual illegal immigrants on the street, or in their homes, or place of work - but unless we attack those making profits from shipping them, or employing them and thereby driving down wages, we attack the symptom and not the cause.
On hurricane preparedness, I believe we are far better prepared this year than we were last. Resident military planners have helped us work through lessons learned from Irma and Maria. Our command and control arrangements are better prepared and far better practiced. The work on shelters was fortunately well advanced as COVID-19 struck. The Royal Marines have agreed to forward deploy a team to TCI – arriving soon – who will stay with us throughout the season – something no other OT has - so if we are struck we will have excellent relationships in place and the Marines will have local knowledge to help support the UK effort that will then arrive.
Some members of the original team, that left us on Friday, have felt so committed they have volunteered to stay on to aid continuity. The helicopter crew who will come to our aid has been working with us every day for the last month and the Premier and myself have invested seriously in our relationships with the two Royal Navy vessels that will sail to our aid. Next year we will be even better prepared with our own Regiment, recruited and trained, and ready to support us in the run up to - and after - any disaster.
I make the assumption that many of you will have not been able to prepare your houses as well as you would have wished this year – money I know has been tight, very tight. I ask that if you have preparations to make, now focus on securing that one safe space in your home that will save life and prevent injury.
Serious crime has remained a stubborn fact during this first year of my Governorship. The problem is easy to quantify. Going back to April last year close to 90% of all murders occurred in Providenciales. Over 95% of victims were men. Over 90% involved a firearm. Over 70% of the victims were under 30. Over 40% - and probably higher – could be termed gang or turf related.
We increasingly observe that even those seriously injured in attacks, often as collateral to a murder victim who they are associated with, choose not to provide the police with a statement. Beyond the sadness when a member of our society is a victim of crime who has no association whatsoever with the world I’ve just described – indeed has lived their life standing against this sort of nihilism - the horrible truth is that our young men are killing each other; increasingly the victim knows the perpetrator and visa-versa.
As an aside – but an important fact given our economy is under such pressure – only one victim since April 2019 has been a visitor and they were staying with a friend who lived in the community. As we unpack and understand the figures this therefore remains an incredibly safe tourist destination; but that’s certainly not the case if you are a young man living in Providenciales who is running with the wrong people.
A regular contributor to my Instagram account therefore quite reasonably asked yesterday for timelines as to when she could expect changes. This was my response:
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almost immediately if public outrage about crime converted to the public providing information about crime in equal measure
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beyond that, serious financial investments made in policing by the Premier, at the recommendation of the Commissioner, should start to be felt this year - that includes community policing which helps provide the confidence the public need if they are to support the Police. In the last 12 months 27 locally recruited officers have been trained for six months overseas and they are now back with us and ready to serve
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there will be an uplift in the Tactical Unit that will help “suppress and arrest” the most dangerous of criminals (which the UK is helping to fund). Two thoroughly experienced UK Superintendents have now been recruited, one who will take charge of TCI’s ‘Special Operations’ and the other will be responsible for ‘crime’. Both are tough and knowledgeable in detecting homicide – they will join the Force, mentor and support their TCI colleagues who will replace them in two years, and report to the local Police Executive Leadership.
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however the police can only be successful if there is a proper reform of the whole criminal justice sector: we have to prosecute, convict, take successfully through appeal, sentence, imprison, rehabilitate and in the end parole far better than we presently do. Work on that, under the Chief Justice, but with new UK support to help her develop a programmatic approach to this issue, starts imminently - it was delayed by COVID-19. On timing I hope significant changes to the criminal justice system will have occurred before I leave – it’s one of my priorities
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finally all of the above has to occur in the sort of environment where crime is treated as a whole of society problem. The Premier leads on that and is enthusiastic to make headway - I know the Leader of the Opposition – an ex-Policeman himself – understands the asymmetry around crime; policing is just one aspect of a much wider effort that is needed
Those that have properly got to grips with crime (Bermuda and Glasgow are great examples) have brought crime down in a sustained way. They however have found that is a 10-year programme. The National Security Permanent Secretary is pulling together, for the Premier, the programmatic disciplines this approach needs.
So I offer no quick fix - what I do promise is to work alongside the Premier and the Commissioner – as one team - towards these solutions every day and to do it in a deliberate and planned way drawing on as much UK support as I can; support that builds long term capability here and doesn’t seek to replace it.
A final word of thanks to you - the amazing people of the Turks and Caicos Islands. Whatever your birth right, your ethnicity, your skin colour, whatever makes you different from the crowd or similar to us to all. I’ve looked across the region. I’ve looked to the United States. I’ve looked to Europe and I’ve looked to the United Kingdom and all I can say is you were magnificent during the period when your liberties were taken and your movements controlled.
You continue to be magnificent now that the onus has moved away from the law and onto your own personal responsibility. To follow the protocols is to do no more than show you ‘care’ for others and show you have ‘integrity’. We have a lot of those two qualities here in TCI.
I always suspected that COVID-19 would, in the end, separate those who had deep integrity and those who did not, like oil from water. In the end under these stresses and the need to think of the communal good a persons real character, or indeed an organisations real character, would emerge. So very many of you matched up to that test. Pictures circulate of those being foolish, stories do too, but what’s amazing is how few these are. The fools are the outliers, you are the solid majority.
Because the vast majority of the people of these Islands ‘got it’ and ‘get it’. We know we are all in this together. We know we have to protect those who are most susceptible or vulnerable. We know there isn’t now a difference between staying healthy and restarting our economy; they are one and the same. In protecting our health we are protecting our ability to rebound. We know that this virus doesn’t discriminate, it’s infected many different nationalities on this Island, it’s also infected – since it seems to be a regular topic of conversation - the same number of Haitians as it’s infected Turks Islanders.
We also know we have a world-beating offer: our top-end, low-density, tourism offer. If you are a tourist, let me say TCI was designed to cope with COVID-19. Our wide-open beaches are somewhere that people can socially distance on the busiest of days. Our condominium offer, that helps isolate families as they wish, and our large discreet hotels have never stacked our tourism offer high, nor sold it cheap. We offer quality.
We are the most beautiful destination in the Caribbean – bar none - we were designed to provide our guests the perfect escape from 2020. Our beaches are soft. If vitamin D, and outdoor life is good for you - we have it in spades and our seas our warm. It’s been fantastic this week to meet those of you who came here, the moment you could - you are very welcome and we are glad you are here.
As a country we will know – I think – by Thanksgiving – after the Hurricane Season and with an eye to bookings over the Christmas period and beyond - what our immediate future looks like. But there is no question – our long-term future is assured not by the softness of our beaches, or the perfection of our translucent seas, but because of the true quality of our people and the resilience of our culture.
Even as I was promising to ‘care’, ‘listen’, ‘serve’ and be ‘clear’ I had anticipated some of that back in July 2019 – indeed I started my speech talking about the early impression the people of TCI had made on us when our family visited as tourists.
But the positive character of the people of TCI is now the over-riding impression of my first year. ‘#TCIStrong’ is one of my favourite ‘hashtags’ on social media; it resonates with me - because I know it to be true. So may God bless these Turks and Caicos Islands. Keep us strong. Keep us safe. And now keep us focused on our future.