As a graduate student at my university, some years ago, I was required to read a book called “How to Lie With Statistics” by Darrell Huff. At first, I thought that my professor was playing a prank on us, but pretty soon it became obvious why he wanted us to get the book. He, in a sense, was telling us that you can manipulate the data to make it say exactly what you want it to.
Just recently the makers of several models of the Volkswagen brand were fined by the Federal Government for building cars that could cheat on regulators’ emissions tests. What was really bad about this situation was that they intentionally built a system that would circumvent the process. So now that VW has been caught, diehard loyal customers are crying foul, wondering out loud what else have they lied about. They allegedly installed software that would detect that the car was being tested which, in turn, would switch the vehicle’s emissions causing it to revert to a system that would give the desired result. It was not until the EPA performed their own tests that they were able to discover the deception. Did they take VW’s word as gospel? No, they didn’t.
So what does a book with a strange title – published in 1954 – and a Volkswagen cheating scandal have to do with us here in Anguilla? Well, it’s no secret that the future of our indigenous banks NBA and CCB, presently in receivership of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank now for over two years, are in serious doubt. That we accepted as gospel their word that the banks were in trouble, without so much any kind of pushback, is in itself, amazing.
Over two years ago, with the blessing of the then Minister of Finance, the Honorable Hubert Hughes, the ECCB, whose mission statement tasks it with maintaining the integrity of the banking system – while maintaining the stability of the EC dollar – came in under the guise of rehabilitating both indigenous banks, and walked away without so much as a peep as to what would happen next. The initial six month period that the bank would need to fix the problems, have since morphed into more than four times that period, which would tend to suggest that the last thing it wanted to do was to fix the banks.
On the 12th of August 2013, Dr. Denzil Douglas, the then Chairman of the Monetary Council, issued a press release in which he detailed the reasons for the takeover of the two banks. Anguilla’s monetary problems were blamed on the bottom falling out of the economy and, up to this day, we don’t know what the solution to our so called problems is. The central bank was very good with quoting a lot of stats to justify the takeover, but is yet to produce the needed evidence to justify its actions.
And while the long awaited forensics report has been out there, it is yet to be released to the general public, because the CM claims that it is an internal document and he is not at liberty to release it. So then the question that needs to be asked of the Minister of Finance is, who is he working for? Did the ECCB, elect him, or was it the people of Anguilla? Maybe the CM has forgotten that we are his concern, not the other guys, and while he may have a collegial rapport with those guys, his relationship with us takes precedence – period.
Dr. Douglas was quick to quote a bunch of numbers and, as everyone knows, you can lie with stats. The banking community has consistently asked for documents backing up the ECCB’s assertions that the banks were in trouble. It is hard to treat a patient until you have examined him. So the fact remains that we know, from the outset, that the Governor of the Central Bank wants us in Anguilla to forget about 67. Why are we accepting as gospel the words of an organization, which we already know, has a preconceived notion of what it wants to do with the Anguilla banks? Maybe its officials are believing the old Bobo Johnny myths that we are gullible, and will believe anything they tell us. I think the time has come when we disprove that myth, in no uncertain terms, and with extreme prejudice.
Our people at one time would tell anyone where to get off, but we seem to have lost the will to fight. We are afraid to speak out for fear of reprisals. Since when were we ever afraid to say what was on our mind? The facts will show that we are the only Caribbean country which can boast land ownership, which makes us very different from everyone else. But I say again, we have been buying that proverbial pig in a poke. We tried like hell to determine our own destiny but, no matter how hard we try, we always manage to vacillate back to a place that, by now, we should have purged from our system.
We now find ourselves between a rock and a hard place to use an old cliché. We know what our problems are and yet those tasked with leading us forward, so far, have done nothing to correct our course. The thing that’s wrong with us is that we are poor proud. Rather than surrounding ourselves with the brilliant young minds that we have, and come up with several strategies to get us going again, we will sit back and hope for the best. Well that’s simply unacceptable. There are a lot more players in the game now, fighting for their share of the market and, you know what, their infrastructures are a lot better than ours, and they are constantly upgrading. What are we doing? We sit around waiting for what we know is a foregone conclusion with regard to the banks.
We have in a Central Bank, an organization, which needs to come into the 21st century. Why aren’t we questioning the officers of that organization? We are constantly asking for financials which seem to not concern us, given that the banks are ours. So when ECCB gives us a whole bunch of rhetoric, how do we know that it’s genuine? Remember the book that I alluded to earlier, which basically says that you can lie with statistics, and we know that their books can allegedly be doctored to achieve any desired result. So why, for the life of me, are we accepting as truth what these people are trying to sell us? Have we learned anything after fifty years?
Banking these days involves a lot more than collecting money and paying out drafts. Former Governor Mitchell of St. Lucia, a very good friend and a long term supporter of the present governor of the ECCB, has himself been critical, saying that he’s been around too long, and the bank needs new blood. We are now a part of a global world and, as such, need to adapt strategies that will allow us to navigate the perilous waters out there. We have had one crisis after another, but still we don’t know what the final outcome will be. Sure we can speculate, but what will that get us? We have in our Finance Minister someone who might actually have a clue about how to go about rectifying the situation, but as long as he’s suffering from lockjaw we’re none the wiser. All of us were under the impression that with a new government, which I might add, to a man, is chock full of talent from head to toe, and I’m including the opposition, were ready to hit the bricks running, so what then is the problem? The Minister of Finance is hiding behind the confidentiality of an internal bank document which he claims he has no authority to release. We get that there’s information in it that should not be released to the public and, thinking back on what happened with VW, why are we listening to these guys? We know what their plan is – they’ve already telegraphed their intentions. In the meantime, two plus years have passed and we still don’t have a clue.
The time has come for us to put up or shut up. Those banks are who we are. Can you envision us going into Scotia or First Caribbean to borrow money to build a house? What do you think will happen? Let me pose another scenario. Let’s say they amalgamate the two local banks. What do you think is going to happen then? What happens to my shares and everyone else’s for that matter? Mr. Clement Ruan, on the Mayor Show a while back, made the point that both banks possess different cultures. They are as different as night and day.
We are in the fight of our lives and, to quote Winston Churchill, Britain’s lionhearted Prime Minister, during the darkest days of WWII, when he boldly said, “We will fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them on the landing grounds, we shall fight them in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight them in the hills; we shall never surrender.” Are we seriously going to let some guy who haven’t a clue of from whence we came, to satisfy his own highfalutin’ agenda, and do so at our expense? I ask again, where the hell is the spirit of 67? It was said that we should forget about 67. That’s like telling America, to forget December 7th 1941. How do you do that? This is our life. We will not go down without a fight, and anyone familiar with our history knows damn well we don’t lose.
It is high time that we start to hold our government accountable. The days of old are gone. We, as a constituency, have got to be prudent in our actions. We expect our government to have integrity, accountability and transparency. The principles of a thriving democracy demand it – that our leaders keep us in the loop as to the everyday workings of our government. We need accountability, not arrogance or brinkmanship.
Every citizen should hold his/her government accountable. After all we are the government and it is incumbent upon us to make sure that we get an accurate accounting of how our money is spent. For far too long, our government has spent our money like a drunken sailor on a weekend furlough. We seem to forget that we are the very ones who over- whelmingly put these people into office. They in turn have taken an oath to protect and defend the constitution. They made a promise to work tirelessly on our behalf. Therefore the government that we elect has the moral obligation to work for the people – always looking out for our own best interests, not their own, or the interest of the few.
So when we see the inaction that is presently occurring with our indigenous banks, we are forced to ask who is this government working for, the ECCB, or the people of Anguilla? We live in an open society and as such, according to the OSF, supports government accountability, economic equality, fairness and civic participation – and when we see the absence of those concepts, we’re forced to ask, why? We have to join the global world and not continue to live like a ‘shipwrecked community.’
Whether or not our leaders see the light, we’re closing in on fifty years of being out there on our own, and we’re yet to find our Moses. We have allowed ourselves to be sidetracked, whether intentional or unintentional, and we need to refocus on the task at hand. It should be clear by now that we are on our own, and we can’t sit around being arrogant and pompous, just waiting for things to happen.
As I said on the Mayor Show, Sir Dwight Venner should recuse himself from having any dealings with the Anguilla indigenous banks, because he allegedly came in with an agenda which was to amalgamate both banks. He ought to know, by now, that such a move is a nonstarter. And to those of you large shareholders, I say shame. You will not lift a finger to try and save the banks, but when we’ve forced Sir Dwight to stand down, you will participate in the victory and you will then say I knew all along that we would do it. Seriously?
Kennedy Vanterpool raised an important question, and he asserted that it’s possible that in the place of no information, and in the absence of true leadership, the people will listen to just about anything. The public will start to speculate, which in turn becomes the truth. During England’s darkest days, Sir Winston Churchill told the parliament that: “When the situation was manageable it was neglected and now that it is thoroughly out of hand, we apply too late the remedies then that might have affected a cure.” We have wasted two plus years waiting for a man, who has been around for far too long, to tell us what we’ve known all along – that he was allegedly hell-bent on consolidating our two indigenous banks. Can we not see the big picture here? How much longer do we have to wait? A thriving democracy demands that its government be held accountable to we – the people. Anything less is un-acceptable. So until next time, may God continue to look after us and may God bless Anguilla.
