In his letter to the CM a hotel investor said:“focus on the business of your administration”. These words and others, in the text of his letter, hint at dissatisfaction with the manner in which the CM conducts the business of Government. Many people now conclude that the CM is too high in the batting order — to use a cricketing metaphor. And some more conscious onlookers declare that he should not be on the team at all. But it appears as though some of his handlers are afraid to tell him the truth, namely, that his approach to people and problems, stinks.
This investor spoke up just as others have done before and several others have said privately. Undoubtedly, you have to take a man as you find him. This CM is so allegedly incompetent that he could not organize a “get drunk party” in a beer brewery; a rum factory; and a winery combined. Yet he runs Anguilla! He is an excellent example of who not to vote for, if we really want to change the course of things in Anguilla in a positive direction.
We need to put the right people in office capable of dealing with the issues in the industry and the players involved. It has to be a whole new world characterized by professional principles and practices. So now we have to look forward to the future and perhaps, in kindness, say that the CM’s heart may have been in the right place when he says he loves Anguilla but his head is in the wrong place and he cannot handle things in the best interest of Anguilla.
We can no longer carry this baggage with us. And, as is clearly demonstrated by the unsuccessful results of the last three and a half years, if we continue in this vein we will miss the boat. Therefore the time has come for us to leave it behind and take up something else.
The investor’s letter raises real and serious questions. But all of these must be posed bearing the following points in mind: he is not from here; his allegiance is bound up with his investment; and, compared to born and bred Anguillians, he does not have to be patriotic. He is here primarily to make a buck on his investment. For him to get a return on that investment he uses our land and our labor. We got to take into the equation the efficiency and proficiency of both of these factors. The Government has to realize that “no return on investment is equal to no jobs”. In crude economic terms, that is the way it is. Unless there is a lot of charity that equation seldom changes. That is why you cannot handle an investor like he is “Joe Blow”. He can go somewhere else with his money and you could stay here with your land. However, we have to be realistic and ask what good does that do? Our first option is for him to stay here — build and cause jobs to be created. You have to give to get.
Politics, like life in general, is based on choices. In the situation that faces us now we have to unambiguously make up our minds about our relationship with foreign investors and our concept of our alienation of land. Then understand the principle of the highest and best use of land and act accordingly.
We got to be careful and remember that no one owns land outright, but can have a legal stake or rights in it that can be sold to others thereby changing the earlier relationship. That is the social approach to land ownership. But what good is it to anyone if it is sitting there doing nothing, while we need so many things! So the economic argument becomes what is the highest and best use for it in any given time. It is clear that we need foreign investors for our development and regardless of the situation that is part of the negotiation.
Maybe we understand but societal attitudes here are a drag on some ideas. That is why it is important to understand that the complainant’s letter is more than a simple complaint. It is about the functioning of our major resource and the economic reality of our main industry and livelihood. Of course we love land ownership, but when an investor buys a piece of it and turns it into valuable real estate, by improving it with tourism facilities, we then have to be careful in our dealings with him. He is now concerned with making the most out of his money — just as all of us would like to do.
But on returning to the letter we discover a style uncommon to our own because he expresses his disgust with the CM straight up. He says what he thinks about the CM’s way of doing things. He expects proper business practices and not the kind of behavior that seems second nature to this AUM/APP Government. The tone of that letter is seeking worthwhile action and is not trying to create some kind of mischief.
It seems that we can’t get things untwisted. It seems that there is something in the psyche of some Anguillians that causes negative distortion of the subject matter; fills the gossip columns; and shifts the focus from the real issue. This is in fact our drawback and, as the letter points out, causes the real and important issues not to be addressed. What must be understood is that it is the result of our voting during the last election that has helped to create many of our problems – and that the CM is doing what he knows how best to do. He is in the wrong end of the pool. He should be in the wading pool not in the deep end — that is why he is drowning.
But it is not the text of the letter that is so bothersome – it is because of who wrote it. Because for a long time the C M has been holding up their relationship as a model — and now this! For sure, we don’t want any problems with CUISINART when Malliouhana and Cap Juluca are already doing the limbo; and the Flag property is sitting there like a white elephant.
But the fact is that this regime came in on the promise to change all things. We would have hoped that they would have realized that such change requires positive approaches. Guess they can now say: “We said so! But we never meant in our lifetime!”
