Leaders Must Be Sacrificial

Over the past several days, the Anguillian community was rife with rumours that the Chief Minister and Minister of Finance, the Hon. Hubert Hughes, had made a claim in Executive Council for EC$40,000, a refund for telephone bills twelve years ago when he served the island in his present position.

This is not a new claim as Mr. Hughes reportedly sought the repayment during the administration of the previous Anguilla United Front Government. Now that he is back in office, he has followed through with his claim and his persistence has in fact, and at last, won him his desire.

The matter, in which he declared an interest, resurfaced when he raised it in the Executive Council on December 15, 2011, but it was “deferred for further research”. The issue was returned to Council on December 22, and was “further deferred pending information to be submitted by the PS, Finance, to Executive Council”. Within another week, December 29, the Council agreed to reimburse the Chief Minister the EC$40,000 he claimed.

One cannot but note what seems to have been a feverish persistence demonstrated by both the Chief Minister and the Executive Council to have the reimbursement effected. It appears to be part and parcel of the Chief Minister’s much admired personality and determination to achieve any objective at all cost, either within the shortest possible period, or however long its takes, once he believes he has reason to contend for it. Probably it is like his fascination for independence, as far off as it may be.

While nobody has really argued against the Chief Minister being reimbursed for his telephone bills, it strikes a discordant note in the lamentations of public servants, including teachers, who contend that they should be refunded the deductions from their salaries for two years now. “Here is he getting $40,000 for serving 12 years ago and we can’t get back our money taken from us two year’s ago,” the President of the Teachers’ Union complained. That is a point well taken.She followed it up by saying that the Government had decided to bring in a lawyer, and pay him US$10,000, to look into the implications of deferring the payments to the public servants. In other words, to make the deductions permanent. No refund. It is believed that the money owed to public servants may be less that EC$20,000,000. That could easily have been paid from the windfall money from Viceroy, rather than the Government reportedly using a portion of it to balance the budget, presumably, just to look good in the eyes of the British Government and whosoever else.

Although he is undoubtedly entitled to his claim, the Executive Council’s agreement to reimburse the Chief Minister EC$40,000, andhis acceptance, may have placed him in a rather awkward position at this time. Given the poor state of the economy,the scarcity of public funds, and the cries of public servants, the timing of what is considered to be a huge reimbursement to him may have been a miscalculation. It is alsoas though someone reasoned that the Chief Minister should be repaid before the Treasury goes completely broke.One commentator, citing the grim economic situation, casually observed: “It is like Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice demanding a pound of flesh from ‘nearest the heart.’” It may also appear that the Chief Minister can hardly continue to accuse former Government Ministers of looking out for themselves, while others suffer.

Public servants in Anguilla have made many sacrifices and suffered many losses over the years. Our politicians and leaders must also be preparedto be sacrificial in their public service and to lose sometimes, remembering the traditional adages that “it is an honour to serve” and “it is more blessed to give than to receive”.