With a parliamentary election looming over Anguilla, the island fighting off the covid-19 pandemic and the consequent economic and employment woes, there is much on the table of the Governor, the Government and health officials to carefully consider.
Like everywhere else, there is an anxiousness to reopen the island’s borders but the cost of doing so could be regrettable given the fact that Anguilla does not want to spoil the gains it has made by the early closure and monitoring of its borders. But a phased border reopening is something under discussion especially that there are Anguillians, investors and others who want to come in and there are protocols to observe.
The reopening of the island’s borders was one of the matters which The Anguillian newspaper asked Governor Tim Foy, OBE about in an interview. He replied: “We can’t sit behind closed borders forever, but the nearly two months we have had gave us an opportunity to build the capacity of the health service to get testing on board; the new oxygen facility up and running; and build the isolation [ward]. That has been priceless and it allowed us to manage the relatively few cases of covid-19. We now need to begin to open up. How to open up? It is an issue which every country in the world is facing. We are not unique. I think what we need to do is to have a bit of a road map where we look at taking the route which achieves the most impact and the least risk first.”
Governor Foy continued: “I think regionally, many of the islands have, like ourselves, managed the virus very well and so there is very limited or little evidence of community transmission. I myself would be thinking –and this is an issue for Government to discuss –to start first by letting people return from low-risk areas; and then think about people coming from high-risk areas like the UK or the US subsequently. And of course there will need to be protocols around people who come back whether self-quarantine or quarantine in a facility. This will have to be very carefully managed and I know that the health team will be looking at trying to strike that balance between risks and meeting everyone’s wishes to get back to normal as quickly as possible.”
In the coming days Anguilla will be in a position to conduct its own testing for the covid-19 disease albeit that the tests will have to be ratified by CARPHA –the Caribbean Public Health Agency in Trinidad. It was arranged for two technicians from Puerto Rico to come to Anguilla this week to recertify and commission some of the equipment including at least one of two testing machines for which the necessary cartridges are in stock. The machines, one of which is a gold standard machine, were provided by the UK Government which continues to be of significant assistance to Anguilla both in terms of actually money and equipment as well as support for the seriously-affected national budget.
“The testing story is a long one but it is a good one,” the Governor commented. “We already have two machines on the island that will form the basis for a very effective testing. Getting these machines and the equipment that goes with them has been a devil’s job because everybody in the world wants the same things; and the prices for them have gone through the roof. There has been some real price gouging on equipment. The cartridges that go with one of the machines will arrive on Thursday [May 21]. The other machine, which is far more sophisticated, is already here and the little pieces of equipment which could not be sourced immediately are now coming through. I would hope that by the end of this week the equipment will be ready to roll. Everette Duncan down in the Health Authority Laboratory has done the training and I would think that in a week or two we will be able to start testing – should we have any cases to test.”
The first ninety Cepheld kits due in Anguilla this week is for the GeneXpert PCR machine [or the gold standard machine. Meanwhile, a total of 3,360 testing kits for the second PCR machine [the Quant Studio 5] have already been received. The UK Government grant to the Health Authority for equipment and other requirements totals US$1.5 million. This is in addition to significant supplies of personal protective equipment including pharmaceuticals, disinfectants and the testing kits costing several hundred several thousand pounds. All of this is also in addition to some 100 million EC dollars that the UK Government has agreed to give the Anguilla Government in budgetary assistance to help make up for the shortfall in revenue due to the covid-19 disease and the collapse of the tourism industry.
In expressing appreciation for this amount of UK assistance at a time when the UK itself is in distress, The Anguillian newspaper asked the Governor about the rationale for the grants to the island.
He replied: “The reality is that there is no Accommodation Tax; no tourism levy; there is not the amount of revenue we expect; people are out of work so they are not buying supplies in the shops and they are not paying duties. We can’t have Anguilla just grind to a halt and not in a position to pay civil servants who provide key services. The UK Government recognises that Anguilla is not in the best position. It has done after Hurricane Irma but rebuilding after Irma, has taken long and we have not been able to rebuild our finances. I think and I know it is the right thing to do. I know it has been met with a lot of support from UK Ministers who recognise it is the right thing to do at a time when everybody is struggling. We need to look after each other and that is generally the mood which I felt in speaking with the UK Government.”
Asked about this assistance to Anguilla, Governor Foy stated: “The reality is that the UK Government looks at all of the Overseas Territories for which it has responsibility. The fact is that many of them have reserves and can get through on those reserves and are in a position to be able to borrow. [In the case of Anguilla], because of the impact of the 2008 financial crisis, the banking crisis, Hurricane Irma and now covid-19, we don’t have those types of reserves and we are not in a position to borrow more to cover the cost. So the UK Government will take a pragmatic view [to Anguilla].
“There is no alternative. The UK Government does not want to see people in Anguilla suffer. It doesn’t want to see the island bankrupt. We want to try to minimise the impact because people recognise the [difficulty] of the recovery since Hurricane Irma… Now is not the time to stop that recovery. I feel very sad because we did well in 2018; we did amazingly well in 2019; the start of 2020 looked like 2020 was going to be a third good year and then this [covid-19] happened. It could set us back for years if we have to borrow money to cover the cost of the additional social security and making up the shortfalls in revenue. We would have the island paying for that for years and that’s not where the UK Government wants Anguilla to be.”
Questioned about the UK Government’s request to the Anguilla Government to reallocate forty million dollars within its 2020 budget, Governor Foy replied:
“When we put the budget through, ahead of covid-19, we knew what our expenditure was going to be – about 240 million EC dollars with revenue around 250 million. The UK Government said to Anguilla: ‘keep your expenditure at 240 million; don’t cut the budget…because you need to pay the teachers, [the civil servants], the police and all of that. But you may need to move some of your money around…to meet the additional cost of social security [payments] and the unemployment benefits. That is what the Anguilla Government has done. It has simply reallocated within the 240 million dollars. The UK Government has said that it will top up the difference between what Anguilla expected to realise in revenue and what it actually realises. So nobody said Anguilla needed to cut the budget. Things are different so we need to spend the money slightly differently.”
The Anguillian newspaper’s interview with Governor Foy concluded with a message from him to the people of Anguilla looking ahead. He said in part: “Anguilla will need to decide its own future. It will need to make the choices it wants and that’s right because a country’s destiny is in its own hands. The people will need to make the decisions whichever political party is in power with due regards to a prosperous and healthy Anguilla.”
Meanwhile, the Governor was requested to comment with regards to the possible outcome of the 2020 elections. “The choice of an elected Government is with the people of Anguilla,” he said. “It is the responsibility of this office to work in harmony and respect with respect to whichever political party Government the people elect, without fear or favour. That’s what I can assure you I will do and what the British Government will do. The decision will always be to respect and accept the choices which Anguillians make. It is my job to work with whoever who sits with me in the chairs of the Executive Council and do exactly what I would normally do.”
Governor Foy was accompanied at the interview by Mr. Colin Hicks, Head of the Governor’s Office, who assisted in replying to some of the questions. The appointment was facilitated by Mrs. Vyrone Ruan, Executive Assistant.
