“Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest
I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people will be my people and their God, my God.” Ruth 1:16.
Anguilla, whither thou goest we will go, but the lingering question remains, who shall lead us? Shall we blindly follow as we’ve done in the past, or shall we question those who would lead us to find out exactly where it is that they will take us – and their plan to get us there – or will we simply revert to another forty years of wandering in the desert like we’ve done in the past?
With the dissolution of the House, we have to ask ourselves what is happening to us? We know what the constitution says ought to happen, but have any of us really taken the time to read it and know exactly what it says? Oh, I know the old saying – “if you don’t want Anguillians to know something, but it in the paper, because they don’t read.” So based on that assertion, the powers that be are counting on the fact that we don’t like to read. I don’t subscribe to that theory, and it’s downright condescending. Our problem is that we have very short memories – and we’re a trusting lot who take for granted that which is rightfully ours and, in the process, wind up settling for less than zero.
We seem to have a country with lots of unfinished business suspended in time, and while we now know when the actual election will be, our government ought to be charged with gross neglect. There is no way that we should be scrambling to get ready for this upcoming election. This is nothing more than one man playing politics at the expense of the people of Anguilla. Our CM is solely to blame, and the fact that he’s walking away from actively seeking office, should have made us anticipate this nonsense. With all that is happening, the fact that we will be without a real government for the next five or so weeks, is unpardonable. In this day and age, how is this possible? Well, like I said last week when I quoted Thomas Paine: “We know the head from which our suffering springs, and we know, likewise, the remedy.” Let us, without prejudice, make this government suffer the consequences of their actions. It is time to bring out the brooms.
We now don’t know what’s about to happen to our two indigenous banks. The Minister of Finance has abdicated his responsibility to the ECCB. Just recently we’ve found out that another bank, the CIDC, has been seen pouring over banks records, performing what they call “due diligence.” This legal term is defined as: “A comprehensive appraisal of a business undertaken by a prospective buyer especially to establish its assets and liabilities and evaluate its commercial potential.” It was amazing to hear our Minister of Finance say, “Oh, they’re just conducting “due diligence.”A competitor conducting due diligence? Due diligence for what purpose? Does he think that we’re that dumb? What the hell is going on here?
What’s really amazing about all of this is that the Chief Minister, who doubles as the Minister of Finance at the 81st meeting of the Monetary Council held on the 24th of February, reportedly signed off on this arrangement which allowed CIDC to come into Anguilla and go over our books without informing the people of Anguilla as to his intentions. It was further rumored that on the day that he held his press conference, that he reportedly signed off on an MOU which allowed the CIDC to come into Anguilla. Is this someone acting in the best interests of the people, or his own? We have to be the laughingstock of the Caribbean, for where else is this sort of behavior allowed to happen unfettered? The Antiguans made the ECCB replenish their bank ABIB. Where has our Minister of Finance been? What has he done on our behalf?
Folks, in order to fully understand what has happened, and continues to happen, we first need to understand that our Minister of Finance opposed us founding a local bank. He, as Minister of Finance under the Emile Gumbs’ administration, refused to sign off on licensing the bank, and it was not until he left the island that Mr. Gumbs was able to issue a license to the bank to start doing business. Mr. Hughes tried everything to deprive the people of Anguilla from getting a local bank, by trying to sell the bank to investor Spadaro, to having the Gang of Seven in West End buy it, a move that was opposed and blocked by the late Albena Lake Hodge, who said “not over my dead body.” And, as I’ve said, it was not until Mr. Hughes was off island, that the bank was finally licensed to begin doing business. At a function at La Sirena, celebrating the 10th anniversary of NBA, Mr. Hughes was still smarting and was overheard still arguing that the bank should have gone to Spadaro.
Fast forward to the present. It appears that, short of a miracle, or quick action by my fellow Anguillians (shareholders), Sir Dwight Venner will have accomplished at least half of his objective which was to have only one local bank, but Mr. Venner does not know Anguillians. He does not want to know us, for when we’ve had enough, ask Mr. Bradshaw, he will not want to stand in our way. Those banks mean everything to us. It’s because of those banks that we were able to become the gold standard by which everyone else was measured. We will not sit idly by and let this happen. A short while back Mr. Kennedy Hodge was on the Mayor Show on KOOL FM, and he explained that the role of the ECCB was that of a regulatory body, and it’s totally out of their purview to try and merge these two banks, NBA and CCB, which have 3500 and 68 shareholders respectively. Now we find out that CIDC is doing due diligence which means that, as a competitor of both banks, it had to have an agreement to purchase, or else none of this makes any sense whatsoever.
Our Minister of Finance finds himself in the unenviable position of having to walk away from Government with a bag of money, the likes of which will require an armored truck to haul off and, in the process, laugh all the way to the bank given that he, of all people, has benefitted more than anyone else from our blood, sweat and tears. History will not look kindly on what this politician, in whatever capacity, has done to Anguilla. He has yet to come to the people of Anguilla and explain just what it is that the ECCB is doing in Anguilla, but when Kennedy goes on the radio to try and educate the folks as to what’s happening with the banks, he calls in to the show and launches into personal attacks that are just as embarrassing to him as they are to the people of Anguilla. Kennedy was simply making the point, using the CM’s $40,000 phone bill which dated back around 15 years ago. Was there a connection between the following two events? The nonpayment of the bill and the plugging of a loophole which would have allowed Cable and Wireless’ monopoly to be broken? So the CM in an attempt to embarrass and marginalize Kennedy came at him with a bunch of personal attacks which only strengthened his resolve to carry on.
Kennedy was simply making the point that he had hoped that the pattern of secrecy established by the CM was not going to apply to the banks – and no sooner than he had spoken, guess what: the thing which was feared most happened, and had Kennedy not seen the CIDC people in NBA, and confronted the manager as to what they were doing there, we would be none the wiser. This pattern of secrecy happened with Cable and Wireless, happened with Viceroy and now, finally, the banks – a perfect hat trick, one that was very costly to Anguilla to the tune of 100 million EC dollars for Cable and Wireless; and a cool 18 million with regard to Viceroy. The jury is still out for the banks and God only knows what that will cost us. What’s to become of us? Mathew Henry said it best when he said: “None so blind as those that will not see.”
So here we go. Let’s look at where we are and where we need to go. We’ve been at this now for almost 50 years and, while we’ve made some gains, we’ve also suffered some losses – some by omission and some by commission. The chance for us moving forward is now – and very much up to us. How we go about doing this is entirely up to us. Now we can vote for the same set of guys who, for the most part are nice fellows but lousy politicians, or we can infuse some new blood into the system. Politics is defined as: “The art or science of government or governing especially the governing of a political entity such as a nation, and the administration and control of its internal and external affairs.”
That being said, the question becomes what’s next? I suppose if anyone knew, he or she would bottle it and make a small fortune, but that isn’t the case, is it? I sincerely believe that we as Anguillians will have started to ask the pertinent questions and hold our politicians accountable. Knowledge is power, and it behooves our education ministry to overhaul our educational curriculum. Our people need to know how the system works so that when we’re screwing around with their lives, they will be able to hold our feet to the fire. Right now, we don’t even have any sails. We’ve been caught in a squall, our sails are torn and our masts are broken. We don’t have the wherewithal or the knowhow to fix what ails us. Isn’t that sad?
It is often said that Anguillians don’t know what they want till they get what they don’t want. So my assertion begs the question then: What is it that we want? Maybe we should state what it is that we don’t want. We don’t want another five years of this same nonsense. We have to reflect and remember from whence we came and try to figure out where we’re going. We have to make sure that we will never find ourselves in this position ever again. We want to have in place all the checks and balances so that we may move forward and offer the type of lives that our people truly deserve. The types of lives that my father, Walter Hodge, Ronald Webster, John Webster, Bob Rogers, Atlin Harrigan, Peter Adams, Wallace Rey, Jeremiah Gumbs, the brave 18 who went to St. Kitts on the Rambler, our pilots, Beavan Hodge, Kenneth Fleming, Clayton Lloyd, Michael Hughes, Maurice Connor, Lynn Asbury (and I’m sure I’m leaving out a few) fought for. You may be gone but you are not forgotten and, sooner or later, we will honor you in the right way – and that’s a promise.
Anguilla, whither thou goest, we will go. The only question left now is, who will lead us? Of late we’re hearing all sorts of nonsense about who the best CM of Anguilla was, and who was the worst. That sort of thing is counterproductive. We have serious problems and those spouting this diatribe are intellectually dishonest. Let’s also consider the source of this nonsense.
The time has come for us to take seriously the business of Anguilla. It is time to elect leadership that will make the hard choices, though painful it may be. We need intrepid leadership, the type that sees the big picture, leadership that says, in the words of George Bernard Shaw:” You see things and you say why? But I dream things that never were; and I say why not?” We need to rebuild a new Anguilla and we need to do it now. We’re in the fight of our lives and if ever there was a time for electoral reform, it is right now, and I sincerely hope that is the first thing that’s addressed. Earlier, I posed the question, what is it that we want? Well, we’re hungry for a new and innovative leadership – one that will be all inclusive, and one that will speak truth to power and do what needs to be done. So until next time, let’s hope for the best and may God bless us all and bless Anguilla too.
