Her Excellency Governor Christina Scott, now in the seventh week of her appointment in Anguilla, has spoken on a wide variety of matters of interest to the people of Anguilla in terms of her official functions. She spoke in an interview with The Anguillian on Monday this week, September 2, now that she has settled down to work.
She was asked how she felt to have been appointed Governor of Anguilla at such a young age.
“I am just a little bit younger than Obama was when he became President of the United States. But it was an enormous privilege and a very exciting opportunity for me personally,” she replied. “One of the things that most attracted me was the opportunity to use some of my very extensive experience in London – at the centre of Government in terms of supporting the British Cabinet in its work over a number of years now – and to use that in a different context in support of a different country. I think that I have a lot of relevant skills even though I am perhaps younger than Anguillians are used to in a Governor. I have a lot of relevant skills that I am already trying to put into good use here.”
Told that she had come to Anguilla when there might have been a need to improve relations between the Government leaders and some of the people of Anguilla and the Governor’s Office, Ms Scott replied:
“I think my job is principally to work with the Elected Members of Government in Anguilla to deliver a sustainable economy for Anguilla and one which upholds the principles of democracy and fairness. I see my job as reaching back into London to pour whatever expertise and support I can to help in that agenda and also to represent Anguilla’s views back in London. There is a bridging role there, looking both ways – looking both to ensure that the political desires of my Ministers in London are delivered here and, for example, making sure that where the Prime Minister has a particular set of interests, such as the G8 agenda and his campaign for improved financial transparency, Anguilla is able to give its support in meeting those standards. It also works the other way: it is about listening to what Anguilla’s needs are and talking to London on that and seeing how London can provide technical andother support to Anguilla.”
Asked whether there was a delicate balance of being the Governor for the people of Anguilla and the Governor with responsibility to the UK Government, she responded:
“I don’t think so. I think what the British Government has said very clearly in the Overseas Territories White Paper is that it wants secure sustainable economies. It promotes security for the people in the Overseas Territories. When I went talking around Anguilla in the last few weeks they care about exactly the same things. They care about the economy; they want their island to be secured; they want to see an end to violence. The same issues came up again and again. It is almost as if the same things are being echoed both by people here and also in the Overseas Territories White Paper. The objectives are very similar and sometimes I think that makes the job easier. There will be of course issues where there will be disagreements between me and others. But I think fundamentally the outcomes that we are working towards are the same.”
Asked to comment on her acceptance in Anguilla, Governor Scott stated: “The warmth of the greeting I have had everywhere I go has been breathtaking. It has made it so easy to fall in love with the place and to really want to get to know people extremely well. I am really looking forward to continuing that. This isn’t just something I am doing at the beginning. It is how I want to do the job; and I want to continue to be exposed to every aspect of life here in Anguilla and to be part of the community in an active way…My passion is to get to know the community here and to be involved as part of that community.”
Governor Scott was questioned about some of her immediate tasks she would like to accomplish. “We have done a very important set of announcements recently in relation to the banks and that has obviously taken a lot of the focus over the last few weeks,” she said. “Looking ahead, I think one of the next important steps is to put through EXCO,the legislation linked to the Framework for Fiscal Sustainability and Development.
“The FFSD, which Ministers agreed earlier in the year, set out the aspirations of the Government of Anguilla to be transparent in its management of public finances, consistent with the highest standards of governance. The Framework sets out some important principles including a commitment to sustainable development, effective medium term fiscal planning, and ensuring that value for money is at the centre of decisions. The Chief Minister and I have agreed that the priority now must be to encapsulate the principles of the Framework in a new law for Anguilla which will set out how these principles will be delivered in practice. I hope we can see substantive progress in the next few weeks.”.She stressed that the FFSD was a very important tool to support economic regeneration, and to provide a context within which overseas investors and others would have the confidence to invest in Anguilla and to help diversify the economy.
The Governor was asked about a twitter message she sent on transparency. She explained that it was in relation to an Action Plan for Beneficial Ownerships. She said that one of the key things the British Prime Minister wanted to achieve out of the G8 [summit] was a commitment to transparency.“There is an Action Plan that is now on the Government of Anguilla’s website which commits to doing a set of things, and one of those includes bringing together a Central Registry of Companies,” she reported. “The Government has agreed to consult whether or not that register should be made publicly available so that anybody would be able to see who is the final owner of a company, and that is quite important in terms of transparency.”
Governor Scott said there was a press release from the Ministry of Finance on the matter and that Perin Bradley had been driving the work extremely effectively. She stressed that the two-page document on the Government’s website was worth being looked at.
“I am also separately trying to improve the amount of information that is available to people about the Governor’s Office, so we set up a Facebook account and I am also using Twitter,” the Governor observed. “I think it is quite important to try to explore these tools as a means of effective communication with people so that we can explain things we are doing and things that we care about.”
The interview with the Governor shifted to higher education for persons in Anguilla, and possible financial assistance from the British Government towards that end. “In relation to the Anguilla Community College, there has been quite a lot of funding direct from the Governor’s Office… That is a relationship that we value very strongly and we want to see development grow. It was a very impressive presentation that the Community College put on and more recently to EXCO. They have some very exciting plans in place in terms of future development which we look to continue to support in whatever way we can.”
The Governor was told about the Community College’s desire to borrow two million US dollars from the Caribbean Development Bank, which was agreed to, but was awaiting approval from the British Government under the Framework for Fiscal Sustainable and Development. She was invited to comment. “We are still waiting for the legislation to be passed,” she said.
With respect to Anguilla being an offshore financial centre, Governor Scott had this to say: “At the moment the financial sector is an important part of the economy. It represents about 20 percent of the economy and, in the very good discussions I have had already with the sector, it is clear that there is a real commitment on both sides to see that grow and to be sustainable, making the sector a successful part of the economy. It will involve meeting the best possible international standards. Those standards are set out by the [UK] Prime Minister, as part of his G8 agenda, so I am very much support and congratulate those people who have been involved in making the necessary improvements over the last few months. It is really a very encouraging sign for Anguilla and makes it a very attractive place for people to comfortably invest their money in the years ahead.”
On another matter, Governor Scott was of the opinion that it would be a very interesting and helpful arrangement for educational institutions to be twinned with appropriate institutions in the UK. “The model of the Saint James Medical Schoolis an interesting one where the economy in Anguilla benefitsfrom having students come and work and live in the community. They get an experience that they can then take back to Chicago as they carry on their studies. That is an interesting model for Anguilla to consider as well.”
She was also asked what other ways the Governor’s Office might be able to assist persons or certain projects in Anguilla. “We have in total about EC$400,000 this year which we are spending in a range of different ways to support different organisations and objectives across the island,” she stated. “We have an annual bidding process for that – where people can apply. We are supporting a range of things. We talked about the Community College already, but we are also supporting individual research in support of environmental objectives. We are working with organisations such as the Blossom Centre and a whole range of other different things representing all aspects of life here and the priorities set out in the Overseas Territories’ White Paper.
“We try to use that as well as we can. In all other things as well, though, there is the opportunity for technical assistance and technical support and to act as a window into the UK. If organisations here are looking to access expertise or good practise examples from somewhere in the UK, we can certainly help to facilitate that. If there are also particular pieces of work and issues of importance, we can certainly try to get expertise for that. A good example is funding for the police service to have domestic violence training; and providing specific resources for the prison, another good example.
Other matters on which the Governor answered questions included the rights of women and other persons and domestic violence. “I feel very strongly about matters of equality and that is not just about gender issues,” she said. “It is about treatment of people of different ages. It is about treatment of people of different races; it is about people of different sexual preferences. I get very angry when I see people being treated differently because of their religious or sexual preferences – and so those are the sort of groups that I am interested in working with and doing what I can to attacking injustice wherever that happens. There are a lot of groups already working in Anguilla and I was lucky enough to have been invited to join the Soroptimists for their annual dinner recently. It was a very splendid evening, and I look forward to working with them in the future – and meeting others who are doing work to support those groups that might be oppressed or faced particular challenges.”
On the question of independence for Anguilla which the Government has been contending for, but about which not much is being heard these days, the Governor commented: “That’s not a conversation I have had with anybody since arriving,” she told the newspaper. “I am obviously very happy to have that conversation. If people want to talk about it, the Overseas Territories’ White Paper is very clear that if there is a clearly expressed desire of people for independence, then the British Government will support that process. We stand ready to have whatever discussions the people want.”
Ms Scott was asked what kind of Governor she would like the people of Anguilla to remember her as.Laughing heartily, she preferred to be considered as a Governor who worked “energetically on behalf of the Anguillian people, able to take difficult decisions and a tough stance where necessary.”
She, however, felt that it was much too early in her appointment to answer that question as she was still in the process of learning about what the people of Anguilla wanted from a Governor. However, she would also like to be regarded “as somebody who was willing to work alongside the Elected Representatives (whoever they were); but be able to stand up and challenge them in private when there are continuing disagreements, and to work through those disagreements constructively for the benefit of Anguilla.”
Asked what message she wished to convey to the people of Anguilla, she thoughtfully replied: “I have only been here six weeks and I have beenlistening for most of that six weeks, and I want to continue to listen but that involves people continuing to talk to me and willing to share their ideas with me. As I said in my inauguration speech, I don’t have all the answers. I have a set of experiences that are hopefully helpful here, but actually only Anguillians have the answers and the power to decide to make changes they tell me they want. And so I see my job very much as supporting the community as it takes the steps it wants to take over the next few years, and to address some of the challenges it faces. I would say also that I am committed to working with Anguillians and supporting them in anyway that I can.”
