Dear Mr. Editor
I live in Christ Church, Barbados, and I describe myself as a social and cultural historian with a love for anthropology. Over the years I have been following the way the people of the Caribbean live and the march of their history.
I took a special interest in Anguilla when its people rebelled in 1967. I found that their rebellion was not only because of their dislike and distrust for the then Central Government in St. Kitts and their fear of being fully under its control at the introduction of Statehood. It largely also had to do with a string of burdensome taxation such as “Pay-As-You Earn” and “Turnover Tax” where businesses making 500 dollars per month had to pay that tax.
The people of every country, small and big, are required to pay taxes but, perhaps Anguilla with no economy at the time, felt overburdened with taxes already. Certainly, in their 1958 petition for separation, nine years before Statehood, they had complained about “exorbitant taxes”. They were subdued by St. Kitts and felt that the Government there was getting “the lion share” of grant-in-aid from Britain and was not spending any money on their island. Remember, for example, “the Anguilla Pier built in St. Kitts?”
Be that as it may, when Anguilla rebelled and decided “to go it alone”, its limbo departure from St. Kitts saw at first a one-page simple constitution followed later on by other constitutions of a few more pages and later again by larger constitutions – one at least in booklet form.
The point I am making is that I do not ever recall seeing an Anguilla constitution which spoke about their elected representatives having full control of financial matters. Surely, when the ministerial system was introduced in 1976, it provided some responsibility for finance, as well as in 1982, but with Britain having oversight for offshore finance etc. Today, that subject is being controlled through the Anguilla Financial Services Commission.
One would have thought that with Anguilla’s history of poor financial situation, after the 1967 revolution the island’s leaders would have made it a point that financial matters were entirely under their control. If they had done so, from the outset, they would have had a greater grip of their finances today. But what do you hear? Britain has a Financial Adviser on the island and borrowing is prohibited. But the fact is that Anguilla is fully under the control of Great Britain and really has no independence of its own.
What are we now hearing further? Britain has been giving Anguilla quite a lot of money in recent times and apparently is getting tired of doing so, using its own people’s taxes. As a result, one hears about the Goods and Services Tax, or Vat as it is called elsewhere, coming to Anguilla. Like their experience under the St. Kitts Government, exorbitant taxation is now being imposed on the people of Anguilla and their businesses. They have now come full circle on taxation but apparently there is nothing they can do about it. Of course they can protest but, unfortunately, it is falling on deaf ears.
I think Anguilla should have rallied for control of its own finances in its various constitutions over the years. They might have been in a far better situation today.
Mr. Editor, I have been following the online postings of The Anguillian newspaper for a long time. I think they are quite informative and that there appears to be much scope for the airing of public opinion.
Leyland C Wynter
