Anguilla’s Chief Minister and Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr. Victor Banks, has described 2016 as having been a very eventual year. He was at the time speaking in the House of Assembly on December 29 regarding a number of matters which had taken place on the island over the 12-month period.
This is what he said in part: “A number of our nationals have passed on. Somebody called me up and said a hundred persons died in Anguilla in 2016. I have no way, Mr Speaker, of determining the accuracy of that statement…What I do know is that a number of people did pass and it seems to be an inordinate number – much more than what would have passed in previous years. Among those, have been a number of national heroes and heroines and in particular the passing of the Father of the Nation, the Honourable James Ronald Webster, and a number of other persons including the Honourable Albert Hughes. I was not present for the funeral of the late Theodora Bryan, a very close and dear friend of my family. There are a number of others who have passed and I don’t want to risk not mentioning them, so I am only restricting myself to those who passed a couple of weeks ago. A number of other persons in the community, including a number of young people in the public service, have had some serious illnesses diagnosed. I wish them well and Godspeed.
“Mr. Speaker, it has been an eventual year for the Government of Anguilla. We came to office in 2015 and we had a number of issues to deal with. One of them was the banking resolution. The other was the Cap Juluca project. We also had the Altamer marina and projects at Conch Bay and Little Harbour to deal with – and have signed a number of MOUs. But it has been a difficult year generally to grow our economy.
“I mentioned today that we were hoping that we would have had a budgetary out-turn on the revenue side of somewhere in the region of 194 million dollars. Speaking to the members of the Ministry today, we are not looking at that number as a possible out-turn at the end of the year which suggests that we will have a short-fall. We had hoped in 2016 that we would also have had the receipts from the Cap Juluca sale. That will not happen until about the first or second week of January. So the revenue we had hoped to get for that year (2016), which would have brought us up to our target, is not forthcoming. Therefore we have to wait until 2017 for that.
“I am hearing in the wider community about persons being laid off at the National Commercial Bank of Anguilla. I know, Mr. Speaker, that this is an aspect of the process going forward because we want to ensure that we have a strong bank and certain tough decisions have been made …. But certainly these are the things we have to deal with. It is very much not in keeping with what we had hoped for in the first year of the resolution.
“I had a meeting with the CEO of the bank today to discuss what precisely are the numbers being contemplated for separation at the end of December. I heard in the community that the number is 32 but it is actually 23. Although it is a smaller number it is still a large number. This is not something we anticipated but in the scheme of things sometimes it is not what we hope for, but the reality of the situation is that there are larger issues that need to be dealt with; and we are trying our best to ensure that other opportunities would emerge for such persons who have been separated. The management has assured me that a number of them will get contract opportunities because there is a lot of work that needs to be done as the [resolution] process continues. So it is possible that a number of those persons will still be held for a period of time. We hope that over that period we will continue to get more support from some of the things that are in place. As you know Cap Juluca, as I said, is soon going into new ownership and as part of that there is a building expansion project. The Altamer marina project has been signed and we have also signed off on a number of small projects in the Meads Bay area – and we are having continued discussions on the Conch Bay and Little Harbour projects as well.”
The Chief Minister repeated that 2016 was an eventful year and that the Government was looking forward to 2017 being a better year.
