Minister Evans McNiel Rogers and Mrs. Evalie Bradley
The Anguilla Government’s mood of frustration and disappointment over the past few months with the delayed 2018 budget and the release of the promised humanitarian aid to the island, changed to relief and excitement on Thursday, April 26.
That was when the Government held a press conference and Chief Minister and Minister of Finance, Mr. Victor Banks, announced that he had some “excited news” to report.
“It has to do with the frustrations and apprehensions of the entire community, over the last couple of months, that the budget was not approved during the early part of the year,” he told media representatives. “We had the budget exercise last year, but we have been back and forth with the British Government on this issue…and the concerns they raised. We have tried to point out to them certain issues that we were dealing with, and the importance of how we should respond to them in the circumstances of the aftermath of Hurricane Irma and the impacts it had on this community.”
Chief Minister Banks alluded to previous correspondence from British Government officials making certain demands on the Anguilla Government including the threat of an Order in Council to take over the island’s public finances. “At the end of the day when there is a relationship, there is an opportunity to negotiate and come to an agreement,” he commented. “I never considered any correspondence coming from anybody as the final outcome of the negotiations. We continued to make sure that we give the correct answers that support the concerns we had.”
The Head of the Anguilla Government continued: “I just received a letter from Lord Ahmad yesterday [April 25]. As you know, we went to the House of Assembly on Monday, April 23rd to deliver the Budget Address. Despite the fact that we had sent a draft budget to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by the 13th of March, the date that we were required to do so, we did not receive a response up until April 23rd, the date of the Budget Address. But we insisted that we needed to go through the process because we were not content to go beyond April 30th without having a budget in place; and we were putting some pressure on the British Government to respond to the draft budget that we sent to them.”
Mr. Banks further stated: “The Permanent Secretary, Finance, Dr. Harrigan, and his team, worked very, very hard to make sure that we got the job done. We feel happy to report today that we received a correspondence from Lord Ahmad which I will read to you. I will also read my response as I have done earlier. I don’t want for there to be any misunderstandings about what is contained in this [Lord Ahmad’s] letter because very often when there is anything [affecting] the general public the naysayers will always find something negative in whatever it is. We are here because we believe we can successfully negotiate something in the interest of Anguilla, and that we can make the case for the people of Anguilla.”
The Chief Minister then read both Lord Ahmad’s letter and his response which he later released to the media.
Chief Minister Banks was applauded by his colleagues at the press conference for his leadership and steadfastness during the budget negotiations.
