Statement of Governor John P. de Jongh, Jr. on the DOI Inspector General’s
Report on Security Improvements

The local office of the Inspector General of the US Department of the Interior recently released an investigative report with respect to security enhancements made at my residence, after I chose to live there because there was no secure and appropriate housing owned by the Government of the Virgin Islands when I took office.

As I have stated in the past, I chose the route of the security enhancements because it would be have been considerably more expensive to refurbish and rebuild Catharineberg than it was to remain in my own home and I sought the most cost effective route. 

It should be clear to all that I never had any intention to benefit from any monies spent on my security after my service as Governor. And indeed as I have said before, and I repeat here today, I have committed to paying over to the government the value of what remains after my term.

But the issue that is central to the Inspector General’s Report is whether this work was undertaken with proper authority and approval. The question is: Were the funds used in fact reprogrammed by the Legislature in Act 6917 for uses other than for roads. The Inspector General's report says they were not. We respectfully disagree.

We believe that the reprogramming was done in Act 6917 which was an Omnibus Bill including many diverse matters. It is because of that same bill that the East End Cemetery vaults and drainage improvements were built. And that is the reason the security work went ahead. Because, just as the Administration had sought -- and relied upon -- an opinion of our Attorney General before moving ahead, so too did we await a reprogramming of funds so that the work on these projects could proceed.

I want to reiterate, as I have done in the past, that all steps taken during this entire process by my Administration have been open and transparent. Any work that was completed was done after Requests for Proposals and competitive bids. Nobody has ever been asked, nor will anyone ever be asked, to do anything improper, or unauthorized. That is why we sought the opinion of the Attorney General at the beginning and that is why we sought and obtained a reprogramming of funds before any funds were spent.

And I think it is patently unfair for the professionals in our Departments of Property and Procurement, Public Works, and the Attorney General’s Office to be subjected to the kind of abuse that has been directed at them for simply doing their jobs professionally, and legally.

I also want to assure everyone in the Virgin Islands that all the work that was done on the security enhancements, the cemetery vaults, and the drainage improvements was done in compliance with VI law and was done with monies that were in fact, and through review of the Attorney General, authorized by the Legislature to be used for those purposes. 

The reprogramming of the monies for the security enhancements was included in the Legislature’s Omnibus Bill and the amended language used in the Bill was intended to cover, and did cover, both the cemetery work and the security work. 

The Inspector General's Office had an obligation to do a full investigation if they were going to do any investigation at all. Such an investigation would have gone into the other uses to which the re-programmed monies were put. Further inquiry would have made clear that the passage of the amended language was intended to cover more than just roads, and did. 

We will be preparing a full and complete response to the Report as requested by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of the Interior before its deadline of February 16th.

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