With the fun and frolic of the Anguilla Summer Festival 2019 now over, other chapters in the history of the island are on the horizon. One chapter is not only about the usual district general election due in the first half of 2020 for seven candidates, but, for the first time, an at-large or island-wide election for four additional candidates – providing for an even more democratic system of governance.
This calls for preparation – from now – such as more voter registration; more public information and awareness. Already, especially over the past several days, when many prospective voters were in Anguilla for the summer festival, a quantity of election billboards were mounted across the island obviously in an effort to sway public opinion. It is expected that many more billboards will go up later on. If the soon coming twin election is not a most serious event and chapter to consider, then what else is just as serious?
Ah, it is this as well: the hopeful roll-out of various much-delayed public sector projects including school buildings, healthcare facilities and other new and renovated structures occasioned by the destructive Hurricane Irma. For these projects to have been in the pipeline for two years, and for over the course of two hurricane seasons, is something to ponder, if not to worry about – particularly since the sixty million pounds for their financing was long approved by the UK Government.
Some people claim, perhaps quite wrongly, that the delay has something to do with the timing of the elections but, to be more correct, the systems of procurement, tendering and proper design planning seem to have taken too much time and effort – and so cheated the time in which they should have started. Of course, this is too bad when there is a growing need for employment in the almost sagging construction industry, for more money to be in circulation and for proper public facilities to be in place for our people. One can only hope that the work will now be speeded up to bring to fruition some of the largest and most costly projects with special emphasis on our education and health facilities which were struck hard by the hurricane.
If there is a third matter or chapter to which public attention is to be paid, it is of course the proposed implementation of the phased Goods and Services/Vat Tax (GST). Three draft Bills, related to this form of international modern taxation, which it is said Anguilla needs to catch up with, have been introduced in the Anguilla House of Assembly, and two highly-experienced consultants have already been contracted to bring the GST Tax into force. Further, it was projected that areas of the GST would come into operation next month, September first. The problem is that there is a need for more public consultation rather than just to say that the GST is coming whether one likes it or not. A well-informed public always prevents misunderstanding and confusion, and lends itself to harmony, understanding and cooperation which will be needed from the public going forward.
If there is yet a fourth matter or chapter of public interest to be taken into account, it is the fact that we are in the middle of the 2019 Hurricane Season and cannot afford to let our guard down. We, and other parts of the region, have suffered too badly from the category five Irma and Maria hurricanes in 2017 to be careless. Some of us in Anguilla, and the neighbouring islands, are still showing evidence of the ravages of both hurricanes with a number of homes and other buildings either completely roofless or with tattered blue tarpaulin on the roofs. To be struck by another hurricane when some of our living conditions are already compromised would be simply disastrous.
And so, with the foregoing unwritten chapters and other concerns looming ahead, it is a time in Anguilla to be serious.
