“A lot of us in the public life, all we get most of the times is criticism — ‘You ain’t know what you’re doing’, ‘you’re guessing’, ‘oh, you [have] no plan’, ‘no this’. These things are emotionally challenging to us,” Wheatley said at a Seventh District community meeting held this week.

Minister Wheatley thanked persons for sending WhatsApp and other messages with encouraging words, noting that they were very helpful.

“It might not seem like much to you, but when you are in the kitchen in the heat, a little glass of ice water goes a long way,” the Ninth District Representative added.

Drawing a biblical parallel to the Israelites’ 40-year journey after leaving Egypt, Minister Wheatley said the BVI is going through a little desert of its own now.

“We’re going to get to the promised land, that I promise you,” he said.

The minister said when his party first entered office there were damaged homes and buildings around BVI and its first task was to stabilise persons’ lives.

He said the Commission of Inquiry (COI) then emerged as a further distraction, but his government continues to make the people of the territory its main focus.

He dismissed potential naysayers who would say that the government’s actions are only because of the upcoming elections which are constitutionally due sometime early next year.

“They say only them who in the kitchen know about the heat. It’s a lot of heat in this kitchen, but them on the outside would say, oh no man, it’s normal times. These are not normal times,” Wheatley argued. “We haven’t seen a pandemic in over one hundred years.”