Minister of Social Development, Edison Baird, has repeated a call for the Anguilla Government to quickly sign the Framework for Fiscal Responsibility, a news partnership policy between the British Government and its Overseas Territories.
Anguilla is the only remaining territory which has not signed the document citing disagreement with some of its proposals.
Mr. Baird renewed his call for the signing of the partnership agreement on Tuesday this week. He was at the time thanking the British Government and the Governor’s Office for a grant of US$185,400 to enable the Anguilla Community College to establish a Vocational and Technical Training Centre as part its operations.
“I believe we need to move ahead quickly and sign the Framework for Fiscal Responsibility,” Minister Baird said at the Anguilla Community College Board of Governors’ meeting with Governor Harrison. “That’s the point I made in the House of Assembly during budgetary time. I said we shouldn’t be here discussing the budget. We should be here discussing the Framework for Fiscal Responsbility.
“It is a good document. It will ensure the absence of corruption. It will ensure that projects are professionally evaluated and it will ensure that we get value for money. So we need to go ahead and sign the Framework for Fiscal Responsibility, and my understanding is that we are near agreement. We simply must make one final attempt to reach an agreement with the British Government in respect to the Framework for Fiscal Responsibility.
“The Caribbean Development Bank is wondering what is going on with Anguilla. The money is there [for the new campus of the Community College] and they are ready to release the money. The British Government has said we are ready but you, too, have to do your part. It is a partnership. They have done their part and we now need to do our part.”
Mr. Baird was certain, while not purporting to speak for the British Government, that more money, than was granted to the Community College, would be made available under a signed partnership agreement. “I look forward one day… that I can come up to the Anguilla Community College and say that at least I played an important role in its establishment – and in the provision of a set of skills, academic and vocational, that would put Anguilla on par with the rest of the Caribbean.”
