Chief Minister Hubert Hughes says without a budget, Government continues to lose millions of dollars.
Mr Hughes was speaking to members of the press in the presence of the EU Ambassador on Wednesday at the Governor’s office.
So we are still waiting on that budget to be assented to and you know it is costing us a lot, because we cannot raise the revenue on the new taxes that we have instituted. So you will find by the time that budget has been approved we would have lost millions dollars again in revenue and that is no fault of ours.”
Mr Hughes says government continues to be in dialogue with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as it relates to the signing of the Framework for Fiscal Responsibility.
Mr Hughes who is also Minister of Finance said the FFR has an anti-development bias and government cannot retard development in Anguilla.
The Chief Minister said he spoke with officials from the Caribbean Development Bank, IMF, ECCB who he said are supportive of government’s concerns.
Mr Hughes who is also the Minister of Finance said Anguilla needs to 147 million EC dollars as a starting cap to get Anguilla’s infrastructure up and running.
However he said the FCO have approved a small sum of money 12 million dollars which he says fall way short of what the island needs.
Mr Hughes said government has received a letter from the British Overseas Minister Mark Simmonds. He said government will not release the letter until government has responded adequately and properly to Mr Simmonds’ letter.
