Smartly attired in a lounge suit for the delivery of the Social Security Board’s Strategic Transformation Plan 2019 – 2021, with a perceived 2025 outcome, Mr. Timothy Hodge digressed from his presentation to make a passionate plea about ridding Anguilla of piles of unsightly solid waste.
The Social Security Director stressed that it was not his intention to offend anyone, or to be unnecessarily negative, but he noted that in various parts of the island garbage bins were overflowing – and in other cases persons were otherwise wantonly littering communities.
He first scowled about the garbage situation at his initial presentation of the Social Security’s Strategic Plan, on January 18, at CuisinArt Resort and Residences during the awards ceremony for staff members. He repeated his condemnation remarks at his second presentation at the Teachers’ Resource Centre on February 4 to a number of other persons. On both occasions he commented on the garbage build-up while speaking on Social Security’s plans to help improve the environment in Anguilla.
“I would like to express my absolute disappointment and disgust that, while in 1980 the Social Security Act was passed – and now has close to 400 million dollars of assets in the fund – in the same year the Litter Abatement Act was passed. But today it is not in force. It is as though it doesn’t exist, and we are seeing the results of it. As you drive behind vehicles, people throw bottles and other solid waste along the sides of the road. I am sick and tired about having a law that is not implemented.
“I have offered, and I am offering again, to pay the Government to make me a Litter Warden. I was taken to an area by Mr. Roy Horsford and shown junk cars piled up on each other and, if you fly over Anguilla, you will see the junk and the garbage all over the place.
“We don’t have the money to pay Litter Wardens but then you pay people, to walk along the road behind the persons throwing the garbage about, to pick it up. That doesn’t make sense. Mr. Horsford told me that he has an environmental project he wants us to work on, and we are thinking about it.”
At an appropriate time on Monday, he used his screen facilities to show a graphic photograph of a set of bins overflowing with garbage – in one location on the island – which attracted much comment from the audience. He argued that the Litter Abatement Act needed to be resurrected and put into effect, and that no one had been arrested for misconduct.
Mr. Leroy Richardson, a retired Environmental Health Officer, pointed out, however, that several persons had been charged and fined under the Act during his tenure. He added that since then, and until now, no further action was taken against offenders and nothing more was heard about the Act.
