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Turks and Caicos Post Cabinet Meeting Statement

His Excellency the Governor, Dr John Freeman, chaired the 19th meeting of the Cabinet on Wednesday, 2 August 2017, at the N J S Francis Building on Grand Turk.

TCI Cabinet Meeting

All Ministers were present except the Hon. Premier.

At this meeting Cabinet:

  • advised His Excellency the Governor to approve the recommendations of the TCI Anti-Money Laundering Committee for the expenditure of $24,910.00 to be drawn from the National Forfeiture Fund for the purpose of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Standards Training on 20-22 September 2017 and Pre-Assessment Training on 18-20 October 2017

  • advised His Excellency the Governor to approve the TCI Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment (National Risk Assessment) Report and for the expanded summary of the report to be published

  • advised His Excellency the Governor to approve the duty waiver to the amount of $1,404.59 for the import of building materials for the construction of the Provo Halfway House drug rehabilitation centre. Cabinet requested that the process for approving future such waivers be reviewed

  • advised His Excellency the Governor to approve, subject to the Minister retaining appropriate discretion to be agreed by Cabinet, the implementation of temporary restrictions on the acceptance of visa applications from all countries for a period of 25 days with effect from 7 August – 1 September 2017; and on the acceptance of applications for first-time work permits, based on current industry volumes and needs, for a period of 55 days with effect from 7 August – 30 September 2017, in order to clear backlogs and to assess and improve immigration control processes

  • received an information paper by the Hon. Minister for Education, Youth, Sports and Library Services on the number of international scholarships awarded for TCI students for 2017/18 and noted the recommendations for scholarships of the Scholarships Committee

  • advised His Excellency the Governor to include on the 2017/18 Legislative Agenda amendments to the Physical Planning Ordinance in relation to enforcement measures to uphold planning standards and regulations

  • received an information paper from the Hon. Minister of Infrastructure Housing and Planning on a report by the Director of Planning on Phase II of the Priton Homes Development on Millennium Highway, Providenciales

  • advised His Excellency the Governor to approve implementation of the new TCI Immigration Stop List Protocol with effect from 15 August 2017 and for details of the new protocol to be made public

  • received an up-date from the Hon. Minister for the Environment on the disposal of the illegal catch of marine product from the fishing vessel Capitan Blaze;

  • received an up-date by His Excellency the Governor on discussions with the Hon. Premier and others on resources to tackle crime and discussed additional matters related to the government’s response to the crime situation in TCI.

Further information on these matters will be provided by Ministers in due course.

Published 3 August 2017