CHIEF MINISTER SIGNS PROVISIONAL WARRANT Osbourne Fleming Comments

Chief Minister, Hubert Hughes

Mr. Hughes explained why, after all, he had signed the warrant. “We have, for instance, weekly-paid workers. They are at the bottom of the wage structure. It would be unfair for us to punish these weekly-paid workers, and their children must be fed,” he stated. “So despite the fact that I have to send a clear message to London, I had to ensure that I don’t bring hardship to the poorest in the community. This is why I delayed the signing for one week only, and I have now signed it to be effective up to the end of the month.”

Former CM, Osbourne Fleming

On Monday evening, prior to Mr. Hughes’ signing announcement, former Chief Minister, Osbourne Fleming, in a radio and television broadcast, called on him to sign the warrant to ensure that workers got paid on time.

“The most recent developments created by the Chief Minister relating to the assent of this year’s budget, concern me deeply,” Mr. Fleming said in his address published elsewhere in this edition of The Anguillian. “The Chief Minister has again created an uncalled for war. That the budget was not assented to before December 31 is not uncommon. As a matter of fact when Mr. Hughes was first Chief Minister, between 1995 and 1999 everyone of his Government’s budgets was assented to in January. In 1996 & 1998 it was January 12; 1997, January 13 and in 1999 January 21. I am sure that on each of these occasions the Minister of Finance signed the provisional budget. I am calling on him to do the same this year. Sign the provisional budget and ensure that the workers get paid on time. Failure to do so will result in the ‘wheels of Government grinding to a halt,’ a situation that he himself would have created, not the British Government or Governor.”

Mr. Hughes said at Tuesday’s press conference that the technocrats in the Ministry of Finance began working on the 2012 budget very early in 2011 and completed and delivered it to London in October. He stated that there were some minor adjustments, but in the end Minister Alan Duncan of DFID “was immensely pleased with the measures we had taken and the fact that we had a balanced budget.”

The Chief Minister questioned, however: “Even if there were little discrepancies, do you hold back a Government because of that when they can be straightened? They asked us to produce a budget by October. We produced the budget by October…Whatever problems they had with that budget, they wrote them to us and we straightened out everything.”

Mr. Hughes informed the media that while it was provided for him to sign a provisional warrant, if the Governor did not sign the annual budget, Anguilla stood to lose quite a lot.

“The reasons the Governor gave [for the delay is signing the budget] are unacceptable in today’s world of high technology and easy communications,” he further stated in his written statement. “On one side the Governor says that the Ministers went on vacation and cannot be reached; from the other side he is saying that the Ministers are busy doing constituency duties, and yet another side he is saying that while the Minister for the OTs, Mr. Bellingham, sees nothing wrong with the Anguilla budget for 2012, he needs to clear it with other Ministers including Mr. Duncan, Minister for DFID.

“I have enough reason to conclude that these actions of the local UK representative serve to undermine the economy, disrupt the smooth running of the Public Service and so distract the Ministers from getting on with the essential task of running the affairs of Government. No doubt by creating instability, the concept of declaring Anguilla a failed state becomes a glaring possibility and what is happening in TCI may not be just an isolated example.”

The Chief Minister said he was morally and politically obliged to inform the public that there were a number of negative consequences of signing the provisional warrant which both the Governor and the Opposition had been calling on him to do.

“Without a signed budget [by the Governor] none of the measures which were suggested to be used for the estimates to be raised at the end of this year can now be implemented,” he continued. “We will therefore lose that revenue. Last year when we lost revenue because of having to utilise a provisional budget, the same FCO was asking us to implement increased taxes.

“Now that we have to do this again, do not be surprised that later in the financial year the FCO could suggest new or increased taxes to make up for that uncollected or lost revenue. When the Governor refused to sign our first budget, in April last year, we lost EC$8m during the two months under the provisional arrangement. That loss left us with only six months to December 31 to raise the estimated revenue.

“Again, when the Governor refused to sign our budget in December 2011, we were forced to sign a provisional facility. Not only did we lose substantial revenue, even though declaring publicly that there was nothing wrong with the budget, we were still compelled to increase the surcharge Customs tax by 5% and a payroll tax of another 5% was suggested by London.” He said, however, that instead of the payroll tax, he, as Minister of Finance, along with his technocrats, proposed a National Insurance Fund, now called for the time being the Interim Stabilisation Levy.
Mr. Hughesstressed that there was another drawback to using a provisional budget. “If the British Governor does not approve and sign off Anguilla’s budget, our only aid donor – the European Union – will not discuss aid which we are entitled to get from the European Development Fund,” he told the reporters. “Last year the European Union should have deposited EC$9M in Anguilla’s Treasury but owning to the Governor not signing our 2011 budget, we did not receive that EC$9M. Again, this year, we were entitled to receive aid in the same amount. However, when once I have to sign off the Provisional Budget the chances are again that we stand to lose this aid.”
The Chief Minister concluded his statement as follows: “My decision to delay the signing of the provisional warrant for one week was to send a clear message to Britain, and to the people of Anguilla, that we will not continue to be blackmailed in this way. It is about time that Anguillians understand why it is absolutely necessary that we stop fighting among ourselves in our jockeying to convince the electorate to elect us. We can only succeed when we once more find a reason to unite. We have to aim for self-determination.

“Today I have signed the Provisional Warrant which expires at the end of January.”

Meanwhile, on the question of independence, to whichMr. Hughes frequently refers, former Chief Minister, Mr. Fleming, had this to say in part: “There is no need to create a war with the Governor and the British. The British Government has stated on many occasions they will not get in the way of independence for Anguilla…If it is independence you want…then hold a referendum on independence and let the people decide.”