I read with interest the article written by Mr. Marcel Fahie captioned “I am Chief Minister, If You Don’t Like It Get Outa Here”, published in the January 27th issue of The Anguillian newspaper, and I believe that the record must be set straight. Like Mr. Fahie, I question the judgment of the Chief Minister in claiming the E.C. $40,000.00 refund on his telecommunications bill. Has he provided credible proof that the bills were incurred in the pursuit of the nation’s business? And is this payout prudent given the current economic climate with so many of our local people hurting, rampant inflation and government workers feeling the cumulative crunch of salary cuts and salary taxes? I think any responsible citizen would prefer our government focus on economic reform, develop innovative ways to grow the economy and proactively manage the relationship with the British government so that it is less punitive towardAnguilla, rather than spending time on justifying personal telecommunications bills.
Now that I have stated my position with respect to the Chief Minister’s saga in the matter of the E.C. $40,000.00 refund, I want to deal with two matters raised by Mr. Fahie in the same article which I perceive as direct attacks on my integrity. First, Mr. Fahie stated the following: “Is it possible that the big E.C. $40,000 delinquent account was permitted because of some relationship and understanding, spoken or unspoken, between the then General Manager during that period of Cable & Wireless and the Chief Minister, Hubert Hughes?”. Well I was the General Manager at Cable and Wireless Anguilla at the time. Mr. Fahie, I am not sure how much experience you have working for multinational corporations but they don’t operate the way one might run a fowl farm, and we all know how that venture ended for you. For multinational businesses, there are rules, policies, regulations and a code of ethics that govern all officers of the corporation. As the General Manager at the time I could not unilaterally decide to allow the Chief Minister’s bill to go unpaid for years. Mr. Fahie, if you check Cable & Wireless’ policy throughout the region then, and it may still be the case now, the company rarely disconnects the service of nationally prominent and influential people, especially politicians, for non-payment of their telecommunications bill. The company does not write it off either. Typically, the approach is to frequently contact the customers reminding them of the delinquent account and working with them incrementally to rectify the matter. I will not discuss the details of the Chief Minister’s account here, but I am quite familiar with the case. Suffice it to say that, as General Manager, I successfully resolved the matter using best practice established across the region.
Quite frankly, it is an awkward situation. Nationally prominent people should really not put businesses in these kinds of situations. Unfortunately, some do. In fact, Mr Fahie, I remember the details of a matter involving an establishment of which you were the principal some years ago. Again, I as General Manager at Cable & Wireless ensured that your matter was handled with kid gloves. At that time you were a Permanent Secretary, a public figure but not even a politician, and the company, as far as we were able, accorded you the civilities that we would a prominent public figure. So Mr. Fahie, I am disappointed in you that you would maliciously imply that some ‘special arrangement’ was made to accommodate the Chief Minister. Anyone who knows me knows that I am as transparent as one can get. If it might help to reassure you or anyone else how matters like these were/are dealt with by Cable & Wireless/LIME, I would be happy to put you in touch with former colleagues around the region for verification. So Mr. Fahie, I hope that we have put this deceitful allegation to bed.
The second subject that I must address, also raised by Mr. Fahie in the same article, is the matter of redundancies at Cable & Wireless during my tenure as General Manager/Chief Executive. Mr. Fahie went out of his way to attempt to link the Chief Minister’s E.C. $40,000 refund to redundancies at Cable & Wireless. Satan does indeed find work for idle hands (and minds) Mr. Fahie!
The area of Mr. Fahie’s allegation on which I want to zero-in is that staff in Cable & Wireless Anguilla received a pittance in redundancy payments compared to their counterparts in other islands in the region. Terms and benefits for severance and redundancy in other regional Cable and Wireless locations likeAntigua,Grenada, St. Vincent andBarbadoswere, and continue to be, directed by national law and the efforts of unions. The truth of the matter is that while salaries and income in Anguilla have in the recent past been relatively robust compared to the rest of theEastern Caribbean, our island’s labour code is grossly inadequate with respect to issues of redundancy and severance payments and, at a minimum, needs to be brought in line with our neighbors’.
In particular, when the discussion of redundancies came up at Cable & Wireless here inAnguillaunder my predecessor, Mr. Timothy Adam, he immediately met with the government to alert them to the situation, and once I became the General Manager I continued to do so. It was repeatedly pointed out that inAnguilla, as in other islands regionally, the multinational company would pay redundancies as required by law. Notwithstanding, the Human Resources Manager and I negotiated aggressively with the authorities in London to secure redundancy and severance payments and terms which were much better than the Anguilla Labour Law requires. Sadly, I believe that the redundancy and severance policy in place today is still more or less unchanged. Mr. Fahie, you cannot pretend ignorance. You know the details of the situation here in Anguilla and you, of all people, have been in a position to materially change things with respect to the protection of our country’s workers, functioning as you did in government for many years as a senior civil servant, a Permanent Secretary and then ‘Advisor’/’Consultant’, while at the same time holding a high-ranking position in the ruling political party of the day.
With respect to the current General Manager’s stance back in the 1990’s when he was a regular employee and his position now as General Manager when he is faced with having to make those tough calls, well we will just have to wait and see how he handles them. But rather than cast aspersions, I would urge Mr Fahie and every concerned citizen to lobby for us to have laws and regulations in place to protect our people. Therefore, in the future Mr. Fahie, if you have questions or concerns about any matter on which you think I might be able to shed some light don’t hesitate to call me. My phone number (as yours) is in the Cable and Wireless/LIME phone book. My closing advice is let us, as Anguillians, party operatives, politicians or private citizens, use our time for nation building rather than looking at every opportunity to rip each other apart.
