Barrister-at-Law, Palmovan Webster, has disassociated herself from the Anguilla Progressive Party (APP) and is now making her own way into the political arena.
Her decision was first announced on the Mayor’s Show on KOOL FM Radio 103.3 last week, almost three years after the APP’s elected candidate, Jerome Roberts, crossed the floor and joined the Government of Chief Minister Hubert Hughes.
Ms Webster was the five-member party’s candidate for District 1, Island Harbour, but was not elected. Mr. Roberts, who is an Adviser to the Chief Minister, contested and won the District 2 (East End/Sandy Hill) seat.
Ms Webster spoke about her decision in an interview with media representatives this week. “First, we have to go back to why I worked with the APP to start with,” she said. “It was a fresh team. It was a new brand of politics that I believed in and, in 2010, when they took the initiative to approach me in relation to a possible political role, it was always around a set of values that I had already outlined. I believe that all the members aligned with that.
“I think leadership is a critical aspect of any enterprise and the possibility of success. I felt that between 2010 and now, I have identified that in fact there isn’t the integration in terms of the values that I expected. In any event, the party has not been active in all this, and there has been no part on the leadership to pull anybody together or allow for a transmission of the values into the next general election, and that concerns me.
“Possibly the most important development in relation to my adherence with the APP, as it existed, was that Jerome Roberts was a key part of the APP and the reasons for my identifying with it. I always felt that in the East End we have some of the values that we share in – more so, for instance, in terms of our agreement in education – and what needed to be done and all of that.
“So it was very disappointing for me, personally, when Jerome decided to work with this administration to compromise those particular values. And so, while I love Jerome as a person –his mother worked with me for many years and I feel that he is a good person – I have really found that our values have separated. I don’t feel that we are sharing the same values anymore.”
Asked about her relationship with the other [unelected] APP members (Brent Davis, Leader, District 6),Fabian Lewis (Road North) and Wilmoth Hodge (District 7), Pam Webster replied: “I love them. I love them as people. I have no difficulty with them as individuals. I want my personal relationship with none of them to change except that since Jerome’s crossing, and because there has been no effort on the part of the other members of the APP…to do anything definitively in relation to making sure we can deliver to Anguilla the deliverables we all believed in, there is no point of intersection.”
She said that it was not the first time that she had expressed such a view and that Mr. Davis knew about her position and had recently shared with her certain concerns he had in relation to his political future. “On the personal relationship there is no breakdown. It is just that I don’t think we are allied in terms of the deliverables,” she added.
Ms Webster, known for societal and community activities, was asked about her varied engagements. “I am doing lots of things at different levels,” she replied. “It all goes back probably to three limbs that I consider really critical in terms of our moving Anguilla forward. I am not just talking about Pam Webster or any political candidate. I am talking about the people of Anguilla.”
One of the three objectives she identified was the need to invest in a social reorganisation or restructuring programme. “In Island Harbour, for instance, we are suffering great disadvantage. Our young people, our children, are losing focus,” she continued. “While we have a good school, and committed teachers…, the reality is that some of the children are going to school without food or staying home because they don’t have uniforms or for other reasons.
“Based on the subject of social restructuring, I started in 2009 in Island Harbour to literally provide an after-school care programme for the children. We have been doing this consistently and we are already seeing different results in our children. We work in partnership with the Youth and Culture Department and Teacher Rhonda has been amazing, outside her own programme, as one of the mentors at the Blowing Point Centre. We are collaborating with them and since 2009 we are having incredible achievements. That has been my main focus.
“We are doing parenting programmes in collaboration with the Vivien Vanterpool School. We have done a couple of initiatives that we hope will impact the elderly utilising, again, collaborative measures with the Anglican Church and the Seventh-day Adventist Church. We have held clinics in relation to health, not just under the auspices of the Centre but working together with other community stakeholders, and I think we are making a difference.”
Ms Webster said that, in addition to social restructuring in Anguilla, there was a need for an economic development plan and a longer term perspective both of which she commented on to some extent.
A successful Lawyer, Pam Webster is a specialist in International Trust Law and International Tax Law. She is President of the Anguilla Financial Services Association and Chairperson of Anguilla Finance. She has been involved in the financial industry for over twenty-five years and sees it as a significant means of developing Anguilla.
