In a recent radio interview with Keith Stone Greaves of Radio Anguilla, the Honourable Minister of Education, Ms. Dee-Ann Kentish-Rogers highlighted the need to develop the facilities for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) at the new Campus A, in The Quarter. The need for the upgrading of the Landsome Bowl Cultural Centre was also the subject of discussion during the interview. While engaging with Keith Stone Greaves, the Honourable Minister posed what I considered to be a rhetorical question. She enquired what choice would be made if one had to decide whether to fund the TVET facilities or the Landsome Bowl Cultural Centre. She appeared to suggest that it should be an easy decision and I was left with the view that her decision would be to put any available funds towards the delivery of the TVET facilities. The Minister, in her comments, was clearly alluding to the fact that funds are not available to meet all that is needed or desired in the development of Anguilla and, therefore, choices will have to be made.
In the Editorial of 23rd June, 2017 captioned “Forming Realistic Expectations” the following observations which remain relevant today were made:
“While every business on Anguilla should strive to contribute to our social development and thereby meet its corporate social responsibility, the business must first have the resources available to it to meet that responsibility. While a business might recognise its responsibility and actually desire to contribute, it might not possess the financial or other resources, which would enable it to make such a contribution. Sadly, as citizens, we are not always understanding of this situation and many persons or organisations relentlessly pursue business entities in Anguilla for support of their social and community activities without regard for the actual financial circumstances of the business entities.
We appear to be even more relentless, inconsiderate and unforgiving in relation to our expectations of the Government. Our expectations are that the national government will attend to all the country’s security needs; all its social (education, health etc.) needs; and all its infrastructural needs. Very few of us appear to consider the extent of these needs and the actual capacity of government to meet these needs and where or how government obtains the financial and other resources to meet these needs.
We must quickly come to the realisation that the citizenry, through the payment of taxes, plays a significant role in terms of the extent of the resources available to government. How many of us express high expectations of government but yet have not met our obligation to pay our taxes? How many of us expect all areas for which we consider the government to be responsible, to be promptly and effectively addressed without regard to the government’s actual budgetary allocation?
I suspect that most of us can readily gain an appreciation of the constraints a government may be operating under if we simply consider our personal budgetary constraints. In many instances our desires for our homes and our families, no matter how worthy, cannot be met because our financial resources cannot fund our desires. The reality is that this is a situation our government and other governments encounter regularly.
In the absence of a thriving economy, a country’s needs will be more than the government is capable of meeting. Citizens must, however, still demand accountability from their government in terms of how available resources are utilised.”
While, understandably, the Anguilla Summer Festival is at the forefront of most persons minds at this time, I share the Minister’s view that in the national scheme of things delivering TVET facilities should take priority over upgrading the Landsome Bowl Cultural Centre. Just like the citizenry feel that there is only so much they can afford to pay in terms of taxes, there is also only so much we can realistically expect to be delivered by the Government based on revenue collections.
The provision of adequate TVET facilities should have to wait no longer. Will we deny ourselves other infrastructural development to ensure human development – and therefore sustainable development? Minister Kentish-Rogers has offered a glimmer of hope, which we dare to expect will manifest itself.
