The Honorable Minister of Education and Social Development, Ms. Dee-Ann Kentish-Rogers, has shared her position relative to the political upheavals last June in which she was involved.
The Minister was a guest of Mr. Elkin Richardson, host of the radio programme “To the Point” on Monday 28th August, 2023.
At that time, both Minister Kentish-Rogers and former Minister of Economic Affairs, Mr. Kyle Hodge, had relinquished their posts in the APM Government in protest against the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
While Mr. Hodge took a hardnosed stand against the implementation of the tax (GST) even to present; within the space of one week after relinquishing herself from her ministerial position, Minister Kentish-Rogers returned to the APM government.
Mr. Richardson asked her: “What would you say to your supporters who feel that you have betrayed them by going back on your decision and rejoining the Government which implemented the GST?”
Minister Kentish-Rogers replied: “I think that time then was a very highly charged time for most people emotionally. They viewed the Goods and Services Tax through the lens of ‘we don’t want it’. And because they did not want it, they felt that as their representative I would have to do what pleased them — to stay out of Government.
“That perspective is something that I heard multiple times from my constituents. Many people complained that I should have stayed out of the APM. But on the principle of a long term, I maintain that I never did enter the field of Anguillian politics to become a career politician. This means that I did not join the political arena to simply make the easiest, most popular decisions for the masses to say ‘yeh she made the decision I wanted her to make, so we good.’
“I think it is important that anyone who is tasked with the responsibility of leading a country does not take the road of least resistance, but that he or she takes that road which creates the largest benefit for the country and/or the least degree of harm to the country.
“From my perspective, the decision to return to Government and to continue working, looking at GST as providing [the] ability to financially emancipate ourselves as a country, is the real crux of that decision-making matrix that I went through.”
The Minister said that she understands people would be emotionally charged and that they will feel a certain objection to her decision because they were not interested in her returning to Government. However, she said that it was equally important for her to make the decision that is in the best interest of the country and not in the best interest of herself.
“If I was only looking at my re-election prospects,” she said, “then I could have sat outside in Opposition for the entire period and come in 2025 and say, ‘vote for me, because I voted against GST.’ With that, there would have been nothing else on my record to show, other than the fact that I voted against GST.”
She said that her desire to be in office is anchored by her desire to see change and improvement for the country, by making the circumstances and the lives of the people of District Four and the wider community better.
“It stands to reason for me, then, that the fate of my political career is of less importance than the fate of Anguilla,” she said. “That is my personal perspective. And if others had taken that perspective, then Anguilla would be in a better position than it is today. There would have been no need to implement a rushed tax like GST, in the first place.”
She reiterated that if other politicians would have taken the position that ‘this is not about me and my political career — if they would have realized that this is about the country at large, rather than ‘kicking the can down the road’, then the country would have been in a better position today.
