Consequences of Betrayal

 

I heard the Minister of Home Affairs speaking on the radio the other day. He was attempting to explain why his government had abandoned the constitutional reform project. He said that the government had been too busy with other projects like rebuilding the schools and expanding the airport. He claimed there was no time to pursue the promised constitutional reform. He was not convincing. It is just a matter of prioritising. It is a betrayal of those of us who put so much effort into soliciting the opinions of the public and reporting back to government. It is a betrayal of the vast majority of the people who so ardently supported the proposals for constitutional advance. It is a betrayal of the voters who voted for a change in government.

The most time-consuming aspect of the constitutional reform exercise is public consultation. The various Constitutional and Electoral Reform Committees that have criss-crossed the island since 1995 have done all or most of the necessary public consultations. The majority views of the public have been placed before the government for implementation. Most of the recommendations for reform were designed to introduce integrity, accountability, and transparency into our weak system of government as demanded by the public. The British and Anguillian negotiating teams have already agreed ninety nine percent of the proposed reforms. There is no need for more public consultation. They should have kept the promises that got them elected in 2020. One of them was to work diligently on constitutional reform.

There is only one reason I can think of why the government would not want to carry out their promise to make these amendments. That is because they don’t consider integrity, accountability, and transparency to be an advantage to them in the way they govern. It seems to me they have given these principles very low priority. It is also possible that the extremist Muslim and Christian minority have them terrified of losing votes in the next elections. Perhaps they feel it is safer to let constitutional reform die quietly.

I don’t know about females in politics. As regards males, I have always suspected that there are three main reasons why we males go into politics. There may be other reasons, but self-sacrifice and civic concerns do not seem to be genuine motives or attributes of most male politicians. Mainly, we men appear interested in three advantages that come with political power.

One is a generous dose of sex. There are always women who frantically throw themselves at powerful men. The female obsession with powerful men has been long studied. It is thought to have a genetic root. A woman wants and needs security for her children and her home. Having a husband or a lover who possesses power, makes her feel more safe and secure in her nest. So it is that generous amounts of sexual opportunities seem to flow naturally to us men from our acquisition of political power. It is the same thing with the female preference for the “bad man”. Intellectually, she may know he is the wrong choice. But her instincts trick her into seeing him as a “strong man”. So, she will often prefer the bad man to the good man.

The second reason why men are attracted to politics is the love of money. I have heard of one politician, whose friends witnessed him accepting a bulging envelope from a stranger. He only half-humorously told them, “I don’t understand these Americans. They keep handing me envelopes full of money I never expected.” If he knew he was not owed the money, then logically he should not have accepted it. Why did he not refuse to accept it? He only had to say “No, I can’t take your money. I have to decide whether you deserve the licence you have applied for.” But, no, in his case those envelopes were the very reason why he entered politics. Besides, the average cost of buying a vote in the last election was reputed to be US$300.00. It must cost a lot of money to win a district in Anguilla. And, famously, “The cow must feed where she is tied.”

When the Central Bank was about to close the two local banks several years ago, I was in a group with a politician then in power. He told us that he was worried about his savings. He had accumulated several Time Certificates of Deposit of over a million dollars each. He was going to the bank the following day to convert them into savings accounts. He considered that was safer than keeping the money in Certificates. He did not need to explain to us how he managed to collect so much money. It was obvious.

The third reason is the love of power. There are some men who relish the ability to tell some supplicants yes, while telling others no. These politicians are not overly interested in money or sex. The pleasure they get from exercising power must be as near as they can get to sexual gratification without actual sex.

There must be some male politicians who have never taken a dollar while in power or taken the opportunity to cheat on their wives. Almost inevitably you will find that their addiction is to power. They might be congratulated for their lack of acquisitiveness and their self-control in the face of an obvious offer of sex. But the abuse of power is just as much a form of corruption. It is worthwhile remembering the remark the famed orator Robert G Ingersoll made of Abraham Lincoln, “Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. That is the supreme test”.

I have not heard any accusation against our Premier in matters of money or licentious behaviour. But he famously becomes vengeful when he is crossed. Feel pity for the person he feels has blocked him. No matter how rightly or correctly that person acted, he will be relentless in his pursuit of retribution.

Such love of the exercise of power, especially to hurt his perceived enemy, or to unfairly favour his own family or friend, is a corrupt act. Who of us can forget the Premier’s recent failure to deal properly with his minister’s outrageous display of violence in a local restaurant. Repeated threats by a minister against the life of a citizen, accompanied by a vicious attack on him with a chair, all evidenced on a widely circulated video recording, brought only silence and inaction from the Premier. His far-too-late explanation that he was waiting for a police report on the incident before taking action was a pathetic excuse for his failure to act promptly to chastise his errant minister. He did not need a police report. All the relevant evidence of her conduct was there in the tape. In my opinion, that was not the reaction of a strong person. It was evidence of character weakness and a lack of principle.

I heard him on radio recently giving a much-delayed explanation for his cowardly caving in to the British on the question of the Goods and Services Tax the day after he won the last general election. One of the main planks of his party’s political platform was the refusal to introduce the GST that the British were insisting on. He reneged on that promise without any explanation at the time.

His recent explanation for his forcing the tax through the House of Assembly without majority political support was unconvincing. We remember that two of his ministers voted against the Bill. He only got it through the House with the votes of two ex-officio members of the House appointed by the Governor, the Attorney General and the Deputy Governor. His explanation was that two or three days before the general elections, the previous AUF Premier had secretly signed a memorandum of understanding with the Governor. The previous Premier promised the Governor he would introduce the tax in exchange for a British contribution of one hundred million dollars needed to pay civil service salaries due just days after the elections. Dr Webster said that promise put him in a corner. He claims the Governor threatened that if he did not sign on to the previous Premier’s promise to introduce the tax, the British government would not make the promised gift. The resulting failure to pay public service salaries on time would lead to the collapse of government. He gave in to the implied threat. So, our Premier’s first act of government was to betray the very promise that got him elected.

The introduction of this new tax was not what was most objectionable. Personally, I think it is a fair and reasonable tax. For me, what was unforgivable was that the Premier did it secretly. He did it sneakily, without a word to his people about the quandary he says he found himself placed in until many months had passed. Maybe he thought he would benefit from the notorious eight-day life cycle of Anguillian scandals. In this he is seriously mistaken. Some of us will not forget or forgive such betrayals of the public trust. This was Victor Banks’ style of government. We were promised this would all change. In future we were to have transparency, accountability, and integrity. We were betrayed again.

There was another Webster who many years ago headed the government of Anguilla. There is no Anguillian who could have any doubt how that Webster would have reacted to such blackmail. It would not have been neat and tidy. It would have been messy and painful. Ronald Webster would have called the people to a meeting in Webster’s Park for the very next day. He would have put his quandary to them. He would have explained to them the hard spot he was placed in by the AUF’s secret deal. He would have asked their opinion on whether to give in to the blackmail or instead to stand his ground and refuse to pass the tax as he promised. Whatever the outcome, he would have been a hero to all Anguillians.

If he was minded to introduce the tax to help public servants meet their financial obligations, he should, in my opinion, have come back to us. If he and his colleagues put a convincing argument for the tax to the people, I have no doubt he would have had our support. But instead, he showed us he is no Ronald Webster.

Even if he did not call a public meeting, he should not have waited until just months before the end of his term of office to try to explain what he says happened. He should have come out to the people immediately. Whatever the mood of the public, he would have had their enduring support for coming back to them. He would be guaranteed re-election. Despite the recent splashing around of public money, that guarantee has now evaporated.

It is not the tax itself that has most people upset. It is his concealment from us of the corner he says he was pushed into by the previous AUF government. His secretiveness is what was distasteful and disrespectful. It seems to me that he has proven himself to be a weak and unprincipled man. His party does not deserve a second term in government.

Because of these and other betrayals, no member of his political party will get my vote.

Because of historic political betrayals, no member of the AUF opposition will get it either.

Depending on who the other candidates are, sadly, I may effectively be deprived of my franchise.

When You Are Convicted

 

On 30th June, Minister Dee-Ann Kentish-Rogers resigned her position in Executive Council (ExCo) and crossed over to the other side of the Assembly.  Then, on 4th July, she re-joined ExCo.  She subsequently explained in the House of Assembly that she had a serious meeting with the Premier, who agreed to meet all her conditions for returning to her ministerial post.  The Premier having now met her concerns, she said, she was convinced that ExCo was where she could serve her people best.  This apparent flip-flop caused great consternation among the chattering classes.

The incident also spurred a weird malapropism that has filled the radio waves in recent weeks.  Her critics accuse her of failing to be convicted.  They want to say that, if she is convinced about something, she should act on her convictions.  Instead, they say she is not sufficiently convicted.  Commentator after commentator repeated the strange expression that she has failed to be convicted.  She was not convicted of anything.  When you are convicted, you go to jail.  You are convinced about something, and then you act on your convictions.  You aren’t convicted of it.

Let us look at how events developed.  At a public meeting in Rey Hill on 29th June, surreptitiously broadcast nation-wide on radio without her permission, Minister Kentish-Rogers was implored by family and friends to immediately resign from ExCo.  The following day, on 30th June, she resigned from the governing party and from government.  Later that day she explained in the Assembly, where she spoke from the opposition benches, that the prevailing message from her constituents was that they viewed her not resigning earlier as a betrayal.  She resigned, she said, because she was displeased with the manner in which the Premier handled the imposition of the tax.

Though she had just resigned her ministry, she nevertheless voted in favour of the GST Amendment Bill then before the Assembly.  Her explanation for her vote from the Opposition benches in favour of the government’s Bill was clearheaded.  No one paid attention to her explanation that the proposed amendments were designed to lighten the GST burden on the people of Anguilla.  So, she approved of the Amendment Bill.  When you think about it, it is inconceivable that the opposition could have voted against the Amendment Bill.  If they genuinely had any concern for the interests of the people, they would have voted in favour of lightening the load.

Her vote in favour of the GST Amendment Bill caused great consternation throughout the island.  Radio talk show hosts and commentators took the irrational view that her leaving government over the imposition of GST, and her subsequent vote in favour of the Amendment Bill, were inconsistent.  She was repeatedly accused of going against the wishes of her constituents that she should permanently resign.

Then, on 4th July she appeared in the Assembly, this time seated back on the government benches.  That same day, she released an audio-visual message explaining that she left ExCo because the path that was taken to implement the GST was not sensitive enough to the concerns of the public.  She had now decided to re-join the government based on the Premier’s promise to her to be more inclusive and her desire to ensure the people’s voice was given primacy in the decision-making process and that other means of economic development were pursued and explored.

Judging by their public statements, neither Minister Hodge nor Minister Kentish-Rogers resigned from government because of GST per se.  They both explained they resigned because they did not approve of the way the Premier handled the introduction of GST, not because of the principle of introducing GST.  Even some of the radio commentators declare to this day they are not opposed to GST.  They merely say this is not the right time to impose any new tax.

The public uproar in my view was a self-inflicted wound.  Government simply did not make enough of an effort to explain to the people why they were obliged to implement the GST they had been elected to get rid of.  It was the lack of any public relations effort to soften the blow that is to blame for the current disaffection in the community.  There is a long list of exemptions and zero-rated items in the supermarkets that they could have publicised.  Personally, I have no idea what the list is.  I have never seen such a list.  Government has taken no step to explain or publicise it.

Maybe the increased list of exemptions was posted on Facebook.  I don’t do Facebook.  I am exposed to news items on the radio, articles in the newspaper, posters in the Post Office, leaflets in my post office box, WhatsApp voice notes and texts, public meetings broadcast on radio, lectures at the Teachers’ Resource Centre, podcasts, and webinars.  Not one of these media was used to publicise the exemptions.  Yes, it is exhausting, but that is what the government’s public relations department is for.

One or two of those media alone would not do the job.  For such a controversial topic as imposing a 13% goods and services tax against wide-spread opposition, every method of communication called out to be used.  The rule should have been, say what you are going to tell them, then say it, then say what you have just told them – repeatedly, on one medium after the other.

They could have repeatedly hammered home to the public that if they did not implement the GST Act passed by the Assembly several months earlier, the previously agreed Caribbean Development Bank loan (which was conditional on us implementing GST), and which we desperately needed, would have been cancelled.  Continued British government financing (which had been negotiated and agreed in principle by the previous administration) of our recurrent and capital expenses would have come to an end.  Government would have collapsed.  They could have explained and detailed the efforts they were making to cut the cost of our top-heavy administration.  They could have explained in detail and repeatedly what the consequences of their abandoning the agreement over GST would be.  They did nothing of the sort but kept silent.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I hold no brief for GST.  I have not studied the Act.  I have not even read it.  I am not in favour of it.  Nor am I opposed to it.  I am now retired and have stopped earning fees as a lawyer.  I have no need to familiarise myself with the intricacies of taxation.  I think, as previously explained in earlier articles, that the tax is a waste of time and effort and will do little to boost government’s revenue.

It is everyone’s duty to take every legal action to minimise your own tax burden.  You are not obliged to provide the Comptroller of Inland Revenue with a bigger shovel to dig deeper into your little savings pile or your earnings.  There are many ways to minimise or avoid the tax.

Now that inflation is a growing problem, we must all do our bit to reduce our expenditure.  I no longer buy good quality wines.  They are too expensive.  I buy rum instead and dilute it with lemonade made with my home-grown sour oranges.  I have put my dogs on a diet.  Instead of a full scoop of kibble, they must make do with half a scoop.  I patronise small businesses that do not impose GST.  If I am asked if I want a receipt for anything purchased with cash, I smile and decline.  What the shopkeepers do about recording those sales is their business, not mine.  Those little bits of paper clutter up my environment anyway.

I wish Ms Kentish-Rogers only the best in her Ministry of Education.  I know she has sacrificed everything for the good of her community.  Not many persons know that she has given up her government-supplied vehicle for use by the refuge for abused women and girls.  She is the only Minister I know of to be using her own transport.  She has incurred the wrath of her immediate family in her effort to complete her programme for education.  So much for the charge that she has no care for the welfare of her people and is motivated by a selfish need to preserve her salary income.

I know that she is driven to distraction by the crisis in our education plant.  The new High School was supposed to be handed over to government by the contractor in May.  I hear it is still incomplete.  All work on it has stopped.  She is speaking about appealing to the public for volunteers to try to get it ready for the coming school term in September.  No doubt, if only she can get the school opened, she will be satisfied and can rest for a while.  But she is not going to abandon her teachers and their students now, no matter how much pressure her family and friends put on her to join Kyle in solitary splendour on the opposition bench.

The Premier does not need advice from me.  But my free advice to him is to remember to keep his promise to her, whatever it was.

Suicide by GST

When the autopsy comes to be performed on the body of the current APM administration, the ultimate cause of death will be disputed.  The favoured view among local forensic experts will be that it was the betrayal of the party’s promise to the people that, if they were elected, they would reject the previous administration’s commitment in principle to enacting a Goods and Services Tax (GST).  There is much merit there.

A minority view will be that it was the Premier’s failure to choose the alternative, to reduce the cost of government, that led to its decease.  There is a lot of merit in that view.  It reflects widespread demand for cost cutting.

But what it misses is that any administration attempting to slim down government would incur the wrath of a plump and entitled public service to such an extent that they would be blocked at every turn.  A slimmed-down, enraged public service could and would bring down any Anguillian government.

In practical terms, the proximate cause of death is likely to be that government could not make the quorum requirement of nine members to be present in the Assembly (two-thirds of thirteen).  One minister has resigned and gone over to the opposition benches in the Assembly.  Government now has eight seats in the Assembly (six elected plus two ex officio) compared with the opposition’s five seats.  When time on the 2022 budget runs out early in 2023, if the opposition boycotts the Assembly, and if the ruling party cannot muster nine members present, the governor will be obliged to dismiss the government and call general elections.  That is instant death.

The fiscal issue behind the introduction of GST was the need to fill a gap of some EC$22 million between tax receipts and recurrent expenditure.  Our government’s borrowing to pay salaries grows greater year after year.  We have been lucky to have benefitted from gifts from the British taxpayer to the extent of hundreds of millions of dollars.  To solve the budgetary dilemma, the choice the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) gave us was stark.  Either you raise that sum in additional taxes or cut that amount of fat from the cost of government.

The crucial moment came the day after winning the general elections on 29 June 2020.  It seems the Governor must have explained to the new Premier that salaries were due to be paid the following day for the month, and there was no money in the Treasury.  The Premier must have been in a quandary.  However, the Governor would have explained, there was a solution.  Endorse the previous administration’s promise repeatedly made to the FCDO and all your worries are over:  Agree to pass the AUF’s GST without delay and implement it, and the FCDO would make a gift of another EC$100 million to pay public service salaries for nearly a year.  By the end of the first year after GST you should be able to raise enough revenue to continue paying your bloated public service salaries.  At $22 million a year, that injection of money would be two-thirds of the monthly public service salary bill of $5 million for ten months.  It was tempting.

For the unaware onlooker, it is important to explain that the new administration had won over the voters and succeeded in the 2020 general elections mainly by promising that, if they were elected to office, they would get rid of the AUF’s GST on day one.  To accept the governor’s suggestion would therefore be to betray the main plank of the legislative platform on which the successful party had campaigned.  On the other hand, to refuse the governor’s suggestion would be to leave the public service unpaid at the end of the month, that is in one day’s time.

The public service, consisting of over 2,000 persons, if you include contract and non-establishment workers, constitute the largest group of the approximately 6,000-person work force in Anguilla.  They are a powerful body, with which no government wants to tangle.  The public service is completely insulated from the political class.  It is illegal for any politician to discipline any member of the public service.

Among Anguillians, the public service is almost universally despised.  This dislike does not extend to those few public servants who provide a real public service: nurses, doctors, teachers, social workers, police and fire service, prison officers, etc.  Many of the others provide little or no real service.  They sit smugly in their airconditioned offices, enjoying their perks.

The public administration department justifies its existence by recruiting every week more and more useless secretaries and clerks.  There are on average, I estimate, five of them doing the job of one.  Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, and other important officials vie among themselves as to who can get their most unemployable cousin appointed to a plush public service job.

During the period 2020-2021, the ports were closed.  Tourists were barred.  The entire island was in Covid-19 lockdown.  People were forbidden under penalty of imprisonment to leave their homes.  Passenger traffic was closed for some eighteen months.  Even after we reopened, permission to enter the island was required for another year. 

As businesses collapsed island-wide, many hundreds of private sector employees were let go without pay or even the promise of reemployment once the lockdown was over.  The Social Service Fund was raided to pay unemployment benefits.  Meanwhile, the public service continued to receive their full salaries and allowances.  There was no need to provide most public services since the public could not access government offices.  Public anger was exploding.

It was at this critical moment that the new administration came to office.  When the Governor gave the new Premier the choice, either accept the AUF-agreed GST deal or cut expenses, the Premier might have remembered and acted on his promise to the people who elected him.

He could have refused to sign the offered MOU and gone back to consult the public.  He could have told the governor to send home some or all the public service while he put the two options to the public.  That was the type of change from the way the previous administration handled decision-making that the public were expecting.

He could have explained to the people that after the double whammy of Hurricane Irma, which destroyed the island’s infrastructure in 2017, and the Covid-19 eighteen-month lockdown of the island’s economy during 2020-2021, the previous administration had no choice but to accept imposing the demanded increased taxation in exchange for UK aid to rebuild the island.

He could have better explained that the previous administration agreed to impose GST only after every expert they consulted recommended it as the best option for the island’s sustainability.  He could have explained that the best option was to accept the cards he had been dealt so that he could pay the public service.  We desperately needed the offered $100 million.

Or, he could have put the other option, which was to slash the widely believed to be bloated public service.  If it seemed the majority view was that he should not accept the offered money, he would have been free to demand a savage cost-cutting exercise.  This option was and is popular, and if the Premier accepted it, he would have basked in the popular gaze.  He would have been praised for listening to the people.

Anguilla’s public service would not tamely accept mass lay-offs, cancellation of travel and allowances, garaging of the fleet of vehicles, switching off government offices’ lights at night, and disconnection of all office air conditioners.  They would retaliate.

In the general elections that would have followed the inevitable public service-led fall of the government, his party would likely have been re-elected with an increased majority.  The opposition would have had no platform to stand on.  He would have shown himself to be true to his principles, and to have performed the one act that his followers wanted most of all:  to be rid of the burden of a perceived bloated public service which was causing them to pay, and pay, and pay.

Instead of taking his dilemma to the people, he concealed it.  He took the resolute view that he had been elected to govern.  He made finding the solution to the crisis his burden alone.  In hindsight, this was counterproductive.  This was his mistake.  For months he said not a word.  When the realisation sunk in that he had, without any explanation to the people, without any attempt to sell his decision to his many followers, silently betrayed his election promise to them, all his political capital instantly drained away.  He should have realised it would be political suicide for him to quietly drop his election promise and agree to go along with the AUF-agreed GST.  His self-confidence would be wilfully misconstrued by his enemies as a lack of interest in the views of the public.  He would be described by some of the more malicious of them as having no care for the welfare of the people.  No later amount of fiddling with the AUF’s GST details (for example, increasing the number of exceptions) would succeed in protecting him from the charge of betraying his supporters.

I forecast that imposing GST on uninformed and uncooperative Anguillian consumers of goods and services will not result in any great increase in revenue.  Given the history, culture, and character of Anguillians, the GST will be widely evaded.  So many of us will avoid collecting or paying the new tax that its effect on revenue will be minimal.  Bills that were previously paid in cheques that can be easily traced will now be paid in cash.  Bills that were previously paid in cash will now be paid in barter of goods and services.  Other than in the bigger supermarkets, few cash sales will be receipted or recorded.  It will be normal for businesses to keep two sets of accounts.  Few will declare their true income to the Statistics Office or to the Inland Revenue Department.

But these are criminal offences, you will say.  You should know that never in the history of Anguilla has a single tax dodger been prosecuted.  There is no member of the Inland Revenue Department experienced in enforcing tax offences.  There is not a single police officer or other investigator who has ever entered a business-place to check on its accounts.  There is not one government lawyer who has prosecuted a tax offender.  Everyone in Anguilla is related.  Enforcement will be a joke.

Government has not been able to collect the millions of dollars of Accommodation Tax owed.  Property Tax is several decades old.  The Chief Auditor tells us that no more than 40% of it is collected.  If we do not collect the present taxes, why should anyone expect that we are going to enforce collection of a new one now?

 

The AUF GST

 

I occasionally tune in to Klass FM for entertainment when I am driving my car from North Hill into town.  I don’t get to hear much during the short drive.  But it seems these days I mostly hear some agitator or the other spouting propaganda and drumming up anti-government sentiment, usually over the impending arrival of GST.

These radio commentators assure us that Hurricane GST will hit Anguilla on 1 July because Premier Dr Lorenzo Webster betrayed Anguillians and agreed to implement GST when during the election campaign he promised if elected to do away with the AUF’s proposed GST (the Anguilla United Front was Anguilla’s previous administration).

It was not high sea-surface temperature that caused Hurricane GST to develop.  It was the AUF administration’s signature back in 2018 to the agreement to impose GST that set off the disaster.  The present Anguilla Progressive Movement administration, appointed on 30 June 2020, is taking the blame for it.  Do they deserve the abuse they are getting on social media and the talk show programmes?

I had a word with Mr Ivan Connor, the government’s press officer.  He explained to me that it was pure propaganda.

According to the draft AUF White Paper of May 2020, GST was going to be the best thing that ever happened to Anguilla.  It would help to restore growth and achieve fiscal sustainability and poverty alleviation.  It would enable our economy to respond to and recover from the global and economic recession, the pandemic, and natural disasters.  The AUF administration committed Anguilla to the full implementation of GST effective 1 January 2023.  (The White Paper was later revised by the APM administration and the FCDO and published in March 2021.)

The propaganda was that GST would not be an additional tax.  It would replace the tourist-paid Accommodation Tax, the miniscule Environmental Levy, and the almost non-existent Communication Levy.  The claim was that this would allow GST to be introduced at a relatively low rate.

The more outrageous claim was that GST would facilitate investment, provide incentives to exporters, and make Anguilla internationally competitive.  What spin-doctor dreamed this stuff up?  Mind you, a lot of this puffery is repeated in the subsequent APM revised White Paper.  Meanwhile, we know that the sole purpose of GST is to allow the Anguilla administration to get money to continue pampering the Anguillian unemployed and unemployable.

The AUF administration’s concession to the British Government in introducing GST arose from the devastation caused by Hurricane Irma in September 2017.  The AUF administration was in a dilemma.  It was faced with a choice.  Either enforce existing tax legislation (for example, the Chief Auditor’s Report consistently over the years shows that only 40% of Anguillians pay their property tax), or introduce a new tax, preferably GST.  The AUF administration chose the second option.  In agreeing to the Medium Term Economic and Fiscal Plan (MTEFP) in June 2018, the AUF promised the FCDO they would introduce GST in Anguilla.  They preferred to impose a new tax.  If we collected the outstanding unpaid taxes, we would probably have enough money to run the government for five years without GST.  We won’t enforce this one either.  Remember the rule:  we cannot turn “innocent” Anguillians into convicted criminals.  To this day, we still have not prosecuted, so far as I know, a single Property Tax evader.

Let us not forget how GST came upon us.  To recap, after Hurricane Irma in September 2017, we fell back on British taxpayers’ generosity to meet the over-indulgencies of our excessively expensive public service (I estimate we currently employ two to do the job of one).  When the hurricane passed, the British made a gift to the AUF administration of £60 million (EC$240 million at a four to one exchange rate) for rebuilding.

We had no reserves to pay for our structural repairs ourselves.  This grant was earmarked for capital infrastructure.  In return, the AUF administration promised that we would cease to rely on the British taxpayer.  In future we would raise our own revenue to pay our own costs.  We promised we would enact the GST Act.  As the months and years of the AUF administration passed, we did not do so.

In the middle of the 2020 pandemic, and the close down of Anguilla’s economy, the AUF administration begged for and got a further EC$100 million in grant in aid.  This was intended specifically to pay civil servants for the following ten months.  It was also, we realised, intended to throw money around to help win the coming general elections.  In exchange, the AUF administration promised again on 11 June 2020 that it would either enact the GST or cut the cost of the public service.  We took the money.  We did not cut the cost of the public service.  The AUF’s tactic did not work.  It lost the elections.  But not before it had negotiated yet another EC$100 million gift from the British taxpayers to pay civil servants.  This windfall was due to be paid within days after the general elections.

The day after coming to office on 30 June 2020, Dr Webster was faced with a dilemma.  There were no funds in the Treasury.  He must either default in paying civil servants’ salaries for June or accept the AUF-negotiated EC$100 million from the FCDO.  He chose to pay the civil servants.  You may think, as I do, that he missed the golden opportunity to send all of them home while he worked out how to permanently let half of them go as being an unproductive and unnecessary burden on Anguilla’s taxpayers.

Let us be clear.  We got the second EC$100 million by repeating the promise of the previous administration, that we would introduce GST.  Since we would not reduce our expenses of government, we would increase taxes to pay for it.  That was the promise.  On 29 July 2021, our House of Assembly passed the GST Act into force.

The new APM Administration was immediately in political trouble.  They promised the people during the 2021 election campaign that they would not agree to accept the British EC$100 million gift if it meant passing the GST Act.  But, once in office, they faltered.  They reconsidered.  They took the seemingly easy option of taking the money and agreeing in exchange to pass the GST Act into law.

The CDB had also agreed with the previous administration to make a $30 million loan conditional on passage of the GST Act.  The new administration needed this additional money to pay more salaries.  It could not turn it down. On taking the loan, it was now obligated also to the CDB to pass the GST Act into law

The FCDO did not force us to pass the GST Act.  We took their money, and the money of the CDB, on a solemn undertaking to start paying for our expensive government ourselves by imposing GST.  If we do not live up to our promises made in exchange for hard cash, then would we be anything but a bandit state?

We have no one to blame for our dire circumstances but ourselves.  The British don’t owe us anything.  We don’t pay a penny in British taxes.  Blaming the “British” for our present problems is pure xenophobia if not an appeal to racism.  Let us face it, we Anguillians always delight in blaming others for our misfortunes.  We are never to blame.  It has always been so.

What really gets to me is the pure hypocrisy of the government critics who blame Dr Webster’s administration for agreeing to the GST Act after he came to office.  Are they willing to step forward and say that he should have chosen the alternative?  Would they have supported him sending the civil servants home without pay in June 2020?  Of course not.  What he did instead was masterful.  He negotiated down the most onerous terms and conditions of the GST as agreed by the AUF administration.  He got them to agree to making the GST terms as light as he possibly could.

I hope to look at these in a later article.  I also hope to expose the mistaken, if not malicious, motives of some of his most vociferous critics.