Minister of Social Development and Education, Edison Baird, has expressed dismay over the much-rejected Education Bill which is yet to win the public support of his colleagues, as well as the Speaker, and be passed in the Anguilla House of Assembly.
Speaking with The Anguillian newspaper on Monday this week, Mr. Baird said: “I brought the Bill to the House of Assembly [on October 31, this year] after securing the support of all the Ministers in the Executive Council,” he stated on Monday. “When a member supports a Bill in the Executive Council, one has a right to assume that he will also support it in the House of Assembly.
“I called the Speaker of the House, and I told her that the Opposition was supportive of the Bill; that there was a great need for us to pass this Bill with immediacy and she indicated to me that she had no problem with us doing the three readings at one sitting. When we got to the House, the Ministers, the Parliamentary Secretary and the Advisor to the Chief Minister and I, were in a room discussing the way we would proceed. A lawyer burst into the room, uninvited, and told the Chief Minister do not pass the Bill, that it is not good for Anguilla. I turned to the lawyer and I said we need to pass this Bill for two reasons: one, it is critical to the development of education in Anguilla; and two, if we did not pass the Bill, we will lose 300,000 Euros, or over a million EC dollars in educational assistance from the European Union. The lawyer turned to the Chief Minister and everybody in the room and said: ‘So what? We can always beg for the 300,000 Euros from here and there’. It is that nonsense that is informing discussion in respect of this Bill.”
Mr. Baird stated he had spoken to the particular lawyer on numerous occasions. “I said if you have problems with the Bill, put your concerns in writing so that I do not misquote you,” he recalled. “When you put your concerns in writing, we will invite you to the Ministry and we will have a full-fledged discussion. She refused to put her concerns in writing, but whenever the Bill is up for discussion in the House, she appears, simply to oppose the Bill.”
Mr. Baird further said that he was“greatly surprised when Jerome Roberts said that this woman should not be allowed to burst into the room uninvited and I fully agree with him. The Chief Minister, without any discussion with me, went into the House of Assembly and announced that the Bill was delayed for three weeks. I can only hope that we can proceed with the development of this Bill.”
It is not known what all transpired in the room where the aforementioned House of Assembly members met, but members of the public heard the Chief Minister telling the Speaker that two persons had submitted written objections to four sections of the Bill. Those persons were identified as the Chaplin in the House of Assembly, Pastor Hugo Brooks, and Colonel Harrigan of Little Harbour. The Chief Minister said that as a result the Bill, which was given its first reading, would be postponed to allow for further public discussion.
It is now one month later, and that discussion has not yet taken place.Commenting on that matter,Mr. Baird had this to say:
“I heard an announcement on the Radio that there was going to be a discussion of this Bill, but we in the Ministry didn’t know who had organised this discussion. I presumed that it was done by one of the talk show hosts, or one of the opponents of the Bill. It was only on the day that the Bill was supposed to have been discussed, that the Permanent Secretary was contacted and told that the Bill would not be discussed on that particular night. Nobody, the Chief Minister, or anybody else had contacted me, or anybody in the Ministry, that the Bill was up for discussion.
“If we do not pass this Education Bill, it is going to damage Anguilla educationally and financially because we would lose not just the 300,000 Euros, but additional monies that the European Union makes available for education. Over a period of time we would be barred from those monies.
“We have until the end of December to pass the Bill; and I believe that the strategy pursued by the enemies of this Bill is to run the clock out, to blame me and to say: ‘Mr. Baird is the Minister of Education – he did not pass the Bill.’ So I want the Anguillian people to know that I, as Minister, have done everything within my power to have this Bill passed; and that it is supported by the Opposition.
“There are certain members of the House who do not support it, and I believe the Chief Minister should give everybody a free vote and let the Anguillian people see who is retarding the process and the progress of education in Anguilla. Because I am convinced that based on public statements, made by at least two Ministers of Government, and given the fact their modus-operandi is to support it in the Executive Council and oppose it in the House of Assembly, that they have no intention whatsoever of passing the Education Bill.
“Their opposition to the Bill is not based on its contents and its purpose, but rather on their personal opposition to me…That I think is the essence of the difficulty.”
Earlier, Mr. Baird told Radio Anguilla that the behaviour of the other Ministers of Government demonstrated that they had no regard for education.“But they have settled on obstructing the Education Bill because they see it as a bone in my throat; and they feel that by twisting the bone, they can aggravate me and eventually choke me and destroy me,” he charged. “But I am saying that those persons in the House, who oppose the Education Bill, do not really have any use for education. They don’t appreciate the significance of education in the development of Anguilla.”
