CODE 18-77
Reference
#
C.
Financial Secretary
British Virgin Islands
1. The post is equated to DS5. The Financial Secretary is the Senior Civil Servant in the Ministry of Finance: he is the adviser to the Government on all financial matters and responsible to the Minister for the preparation of the annual recurrent and capital budgets and for ensuring that the approved budgets are put into effect. He is also responsible for the Treasury, Customs and Inland Revenue Departments.
2. The Chief Minister is also Minister of Finance and looks to the Financial Secretary as his right-hand man. If he is to play a key role the Financial Secretary needs to have tact, patience, persuasion and a light and sensitive political touch so as to gain and retain the confidence of his Minister. The people are volatile and tend to have an inferiority complex. The smallness of the population results in an atmosphere of village politics in which everyone knows everybody and his business.