At the elections victory motorcade of the Anguilla Progressive Movement, almost three weeks ago, Premier Ellis Webster spoke to The Anguillian newspaper about some of his early plans on taking over the leadership of Anguilla.
On Saturday, July 11, he again spoke to the newspaper on a number of his Government’s other plans. The interview went as follows:
Premier Webster, what are some of the other pressing matters you are addressing over the coming days, weeks or months?
Certainly, we have to address the economy. We have to get the country opened. We depend on tourism. It is our number one industry and the longer we stay closed, it is the more we will experience an economic downturn. Our people need to get back to work. Our hospitality workers have been out since March, and we have been helping them through Social Security and by Government giving some assistance, but that also has a limit. The goal right now is to get the country reopened – not only for our students, and other repatriated Anguillians, but we also have to begin having visitors come to the island. We have to do this in a safe and phased manner.
What timing do you have in mind for the reopening of Anguilla?
We are looking at the end of July – that we would want to start opening up to visitors. It will begin where we have persons coming in on private jets and going to villas. We have a plan whereby they have to be tested negative of the covid-19 when they get here. They will then be quarantined and, at the end of that period, we will retest them to make sure that they are covid-free before they are allowed to go around in the community. We feel that this is the way to keep low the risk of community spread of the virus if someone came in positive.
How did you find the response to the COVID-19 disease when you took over the Premiership of Anguilla?
The Chief Medical Officer, the Ministry of Health, the Permanent Secretary, Health, and the Governor’s Office, have done a great job so far – and when we came in we basically followed the protocols they have been using. I had several meetings with the health team, the Governor’s Office and the Executive Council, and discussed various options. Our main goal is to keep the people of Anguilla safe, but we have to get the economy kick-started and this is what it requires.
In terms of the protocols, we looked all around the region at what others are doing and we picked the best practices. Antigua got into trouble when there was a jump of 39 cases of the virus all at once. We don’t want to see that happen here because I don’t think our health system in Anguilla can handle that many cases at once. So what we are doing is using a phased approach so that if, God forbid, we did get a positive case or two, we have them under control and insolated. We do contact tracing and testing because we want to keep the people of Anguilla safe.
As we look forward to the reopening of Anguilla, what plans do we have for the resumption of the ferry boat service?
We are again looking at the 30th of July to see, based on what is happening in St. Martin/ St. Maarten. We know that the Dutch side has some positive cases and so does the French side – although, to date, there have been no new cases in Dutch St. Maarten for six days. But they are starting to consider opening the airport, and I know they have pushed it back for planes coming from the United States until the first of August. This is because they, too, understand that you cannot overwhelm the health system. As I said, we want to see, at the end of the month, what’s happening in both the French and Dutch sides of St. Martin/ St. Maarten, and then we will determine when the ferryboats can run freely. We just have to wait a little bit more, depending on those two countries across the water.
Premier Webster, you made mention in a recent press release, about the 100 million EC dollars for Anguilla from the UK Government. Where are we on that offer?
The backdrop to that is that on June 11 the former Premier [Mr. Victor Banks] signed a Memorandum of Understanding accepting up to a hundred million EC dollars from the United Kingdom Government – to help with the budget shortfall because of the covid-19 pandemic. That was signed by him and by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. When we came in, we were presented with this document, and basically it was up to us, by the 10th of July, to accept it – or not to be given the aid because we were told there would be no negotiations.
We feel that there are some conditions in that MOU, such as committing to a Goods and Service Tax, which we do not think, in this type of economy, is a good tax whereby you have to burden people – and whereby the cost of living would go up. You will then have to hire accountants and book-keepers to keep track, and the Government would have to hire persons to enforce the collection of the tax. If you have to add cost to collect [revenue] I don’t think that’s a good model to use. That’s one of the things we are concerned about. The other issues we are concerned about are regarding guidelines. We don’t feel, based on when we got in [government], and figured out how things were going, that we could meet the deadlines that were set. Then there were some of the conditions, including those regarding statutory bodies, subventions and coming up with laws that would allow us to take people to court if they were in arrears on their taxes.
These are things that I think need further discussion. We couldn’t just come in and accept them at face value. And so, at this point, I have recommended that we go ahead and accept the first tranche of aid because we were also told that we were right now over-drawn in the banks; the Treasury was essentially empty and so we have debt we have to pay; and we have salaries for the civil servants and other obligations that need to be done. Given the financial situation, I went ahead and told them [the UK Government] that we would submit the claims for the first tranche with the caveat that we could have some discussions with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Minister for the Overseas Territories (Baroness Sugg), and the Governor, to discuss some of the concerns we have.
Can you say how much is this first tranche and the amount of the other tranches to follow?
It is based on a monthly [arrangement] to meet the shortfall from the budget’s revenue. The budget was supposed to be 254 million dollars in expected revenue – with expenditure of 241 million. The United Kingdom Government said that they would meet up to that level, but any duty-free concessions or any type of reallocation of funds we gave, would be deducted from the amount. The first tranche that would cover April and May should come up to about 22 million dollars. After that, as I said, that amount will also be dependent on what discretionary concessions that were given from April 1st up to May 31st. The intent is to make sure that healthcare related to the covid-19 pandemic is funded.
It is supposed to be a monthly tranche, but we will probably get it in quarters because we are now collecting for April and May which was the first tranche – but this July, and so the next tranche is for June and July, and that is how we will go. We have until January 2021 to collect whatever we will collect under this Memorandum of Understanding.
There was an agreement between the Social Security Board and the former Government of Anguilla whereby 1000 EC dollars was paid to unemployed workers. Where is that agreement now?
That agreement would have expired on June 30th. However, in discussions with the Director of Social Security, Mr. Tim Hodge, we looked at the possibility of Social Security extending that [payment] for at least two months – and possibly three if it meets within their recommended allocation. They were anticipating that about nine million dollars EC would have been spent for the first three months – but they came in around six million so I think they can extend [the payment] for at least two months and maybe three. If they can’t meet that requirement then, certainly, the Government of Anguilla is intent to continuing that at least until the end of September, but it would drop to 800 dollars rather than the 1000 from the Government – based on our financial position at this time.
