Over the coming months the Anguilla Government expects to begin using the 12.5 million EC dollars the island received from the UK Government for infrastructure work, but Chief Minister Hubert complains that it is not enough. Instead, he said his Government wanted EC$140 million.
“One of the drawbacks that we encountered was that we had to dip into reserves to find twelve million dollars to do some necessary infrastructure – repairs to our roads and so on,” Mr. Hughes said in a Radio Anguilla interview on Wednesday, April 10. “We feel it is necessary for us to maintain our infrastructure but we were not getting the type of revenue or the type of aid to do that. So we decided: what’s the point of having reserves and the country is falling asunder at its seams and nobody is coming to our aid?
“We requested 140 million dollars from the British Government…and they responded – we would not want you to take that 12 million out of your reserves so we will supply you with three million pounds approximately 12.5 million dollars.
“We feel that it is grossly inadequate but at least it is a start and we feel, going forward, we will prove to them that it was inadequate. In order to get our budget signed, and the fact that they have shown some little sympathy in preventing us from going into the reserves, we cannot continue to prolong this thing beyond the 30th of this month. We must have a budget because not having a budget we lose out on the first tranche of our EDF funding from the European Union.
“According to the European Union’s rules, although they said Anguilla is always compliant, the fact that the British Government does not give assent to our budget means that they (the EU) cannot negotiate with us…They (UK Government) contributed somewhat but the fact of not having a budget, always loses you revenue because you cannot collect any tax measures that assist in balancing the budget between January and December.”
Chief Minister, who is also Minister of Finance and Economic Development, requested the above-mentioned 140 million dollars in a letter to the Minister for the Overseas Territories, Mark Simmonds, on December 14, 2012.
He explained that the requested capital grant assistance was needed over the period 2013-2015 as follows: port development (Blowing Point Ferry Expansion):EC$60 million; Road development: EC$40, million and Social Development: EC$40 million.
The EC$12.5 million which the UK provided instead will be used for road reconstruction in The Valley area and social development work.
