At-Large Seats

The Great “At-Large Seats” Trick

Anguilla’s population is approximately 13,000.  Demographically, Anguilla is a typical developing country.  A majority of the population consists of school children and babies.  These are not included on a Voters’ List.  The Voters’ List supposedly contains only persons who were resident in one of the electoral districts at the time they were registered.

In the 2015 general elections, there were 10,908 registered voters.  It must be questionable that, with a majority of the inhabitants being children, Anguilla could muster 10,908 voters out of a total population of 13,000.  It is evident that a large number of registered voters must reside outside of Anguilla.  It must be questionable whether they ever qualified to be included on the Voters’ List.

In 2015, some 7,978 persons voted.  These included plane-loads of supporters flown in from overseas the day before the poll.  They voted for 7 representatives from 7 districts.  The AUF won 6 districts with 54.47% of the votes cast, thus forming the government; the AUM won no districts with 38.24% of the votes; and Pam Webster won her seat with 5.92% of the votes, thus becoming the sole member of the opposition in the House of Assembly.

When the Constitutional and Electoral Reform Commission of 2006 (and the succeeding Committee of 2015) was established and began its work, it was soon agreed that Anguilla’s representative arrangements for the House of Assembly were undemocratic.  One of the major tasks set by the Committee in its 2017 Report was to restore Anguilla’s representative system to a reasonably democratic state.  Why is the representative system of Anguilla said to be undemocratic?

First, there are two Nominated Members who sit and vote in the House.  They are nominated by the Governor, who can sometimes be under the undue influence of a persuasive Chief Minister or Premier.  Nominated members are a hold-over from the ancient colonial period when the governor nominated all the members of the House.  They have no place in a modern democratic system.

After the 2015 elections, 2 members of one influential Island Harbour family that generally supports the AUF party were nominated to fill both Nominated Member positions.  After a shaky start, both Nominated Members demonstrated their total and unwavering support for the AUF administration, and their rejection of every opposition initiative in the House. 

Further, in most of the electoral districts in Anguilla, success in general elections depends on a combination of how many family members reside in the district and how many (disqualified) supporters the candidates have infiltrated into the Voters List.  The numbers of voters in each is so small that few are unrelated to one or more of the candidates.  Elections are more a matter of tribal alliance than issue based competition.

Second, the 2 ex-officio members of the House (the Attorney-General and the Deputy Governor) have a theoretical vote, though they seldom exercise it.  They sit in the House as full voting members even though no one elected them to the House.  That is clearly anti-democratic.

Third, there are 7 elected seats in the House, and 4 of them supply Ministers to fill the government.  That meant that Cabinet Ministers formed a majority of the 2015 elected members of the House of Assembly.  The result is that when proposals from Cabinet come to the House for a vote, the House is at best a rubber stamp for the decisions taken by Cabinet.  That arrangement is clearly anti-democratic.

Constitutionally, the House is supposed to be an equal branch of government, not a rubber stamp.  In any event, 4 Ministers of Government cannot effectively handle all the portfolios of a modern government.  There is a long-standing demand for the number of Ministers to be increased from 4 to 6.

Fourth, the people of Anguilla are entitled to more or less equal representation in the House of Assembly.  However, the 10,908 registered voters are unevenly distributed among the 7 districts as follows.  There are 1,696 in District 1;  964 in District 2;  2,005 in District 3;  2,355 in District 4;  1,187 in District 5;  1,718 in District 6;  and 983 in District 7.  This is very uneven representation and is anti-democratic.

Equal representation can be achieved by having the boundaries of the 7 districts periodically adjusted to ensure there are more or less similar numbers of residents in each district.  This is common throughout the Commonwealth Caribbean.  It is achieved by having the House of Assembly from time to time accept the recommendations for new boundaries proposed by an independent Boundaries Commission.  Anguilla has never, since modern government began in 1971, had an independent Boundaries Commission.

It is noticeable that in the 2015 elections, 3 of the 7 districts won by the AUF contained over 6,078 voters, more than half of the 10,908 voters on the List for all 7 districts combined.  Each district elects only one representative, so the voters of those 3 districts can be said to be underrepresented in the House.

Fifth, with only 7 elected seats, there is bound to be a scarcity of talent in the House.  There are not enough voices to raise the level of debate.  Many important issues never get an airing because there are just not enough representatives to take hold of the issues.  There is a need to increase the number of elected representatives, if only to raise the quality of debate in the House.

The result of these weaknesses in Anguilla’s House of Assembly is what has been called “Anguilla’s democracy deficit”.  There is no real democracy in Anguillia’s system of government.  Whoever can trick the system wins.

It was to solve these democracy deficit issues that the 2017 Report of the Constitutional and Electoral Reform Commission recommended (1) nominated members be abolished; (2) the ex-officio members be deprived of a right to vote; (3) the number of Ministers be increased from 4 to 6 and never exceed 50% of the membership of the House; (4) the boundaries of the districts be adjusted periodically so that each district contains approximately the same number of voters as the other districts; (5) the number of representatives be increased to 13.  That last was to be achieved by increasing the number of districts from 7 to 9 and introducing 4 “at-large’ seats which would be voted for by the entire voting list, so that the number of elected representatives would be increased from 7 to 13.  This is a total package for reform.  It is not amenable to being split up.  You cannot introduce one of the reforms, and omit the others, and at the same time achieve progress.

And then somebody did the arithmetic.  If the party that controlled the 2 Valley Division districts could persuade the British to introduce the 4 at-large members into the Constitution, while keeping the existing fraudulent Voters List, and retaining the original 7 districts, with no revision of the boundaries, then the voters from these 2 districts (plus any support from others) would be enough to win the 4 at-large seats in the 2020 elections.  The Opposition might win the vast majority of the districts, but they would never win a majority of seats in the House.  The party controlling the 2 Valley districts would be guaranteed 6 representatives in the House, and control of government after 2020.

In late 2018, without any discussion with the Anguillian public, an appropriate representation was secretly made to Lord Tariq Ahmad, Minister for the Overseas Territories in London.  He agreed to the proposal.  Once this proposal was revealed (by publication of the draft Order in Council), the united Opposition in Anguilla protested about the malign effect of allowing the administration to cherry-pick the Committee’s recommendations for political advantage.  Lord Ahmad, however, had already succumbed to pressure from the local administration.  The result is the Anguilla Constitution (Amendment) Order 2019 which was signed into law in February.

This Order in Council allows the Elections Act to be amended to introduce the 4 at-large seats without any of the other related reforms.  This instrument represents Lord Ahmad’s betrayal of the constitutional and electoral reform project in Anguilla.  It is a betrayal by the British Government of the promise of good governance for the people of Anguilla.  The Elections Bill 2019 published on the government website is their attempt to carry out this trickery.

The Elections Bill 2019 is an election gimmick.  If the British government was serious about good governance in Anguilla (which all the evidence indicates we should doubt) it would never be signed into law.

Voters' List

The Voters’ List Will Never Be Cleaned Up – By Don Mitchell

Dear Mr Editor,

I was going to send you the letter below for anonymous publication.  It is written satirically.  It is my effort to understand and to explain through satire why the administration is attempting to pass the new Elections Bill, while secretly and surreptitiously omitting from it the Voters’ List and campaign financing reforms recommended by the CERC.  

It is written from the point of view of an imaginary, long-serving Member of the Anguilla House of Representatives.  I imagine him giving his reasons for not accepting the reforms of cleaning up the Voters’ List and regulating campaign spending, and for keeping quiet about leaving out these reforms from the Bill for a new Elections Act published on the government website for discussion.

But, I have been persuaded that the letter by itself would be counter-productive.  It is said that many Anguillians don’t do figures of speech.  They read irony and sarcasm literally.  Metaphors and similes, it seems, cause them confusion.  Double entendre, even in calypso, is lost on literal-minded people.  That is what happens to the brains of people who believe the fantastical fables of the Old Testament to be literal truth.  It seems that sadly we have a lot of those in Anguilla.

So, to avoid misunderstanding, I am happy to let your readers know that I have written the anonymous letter below.

Yours sincerely,

Don Mitchell

--------------------------------------------

“Dear Editor,

Don Mitchell is an idiot.  Whatever made him think we would allow the List to be cleaned up?  Does he have any idea how many years, decades, I have struggled to get family and friends who live in the USA onto the List, so they can come to Anguilla at election time to vote for me?  I have children born in the USA.  They have never resided in Anguilla.  But they come to vote for me whenever I buy them a ticket.  He wants to tell me my own children are not qualified to vote for me?  I will never agree to that.

It gets worse.  He says that under the Constitution my children were never qualified to be on the List in the first place, as they never resided here.  And, now he wants to make it even more difficult for me to get them on the List by saying they have to be “ordinarily resident”?  That means they have to live and work in Anguilla before they can get on the List.  How does he expect me to win the next election, if all my family and friends who live overseas are taken off the List?  Is he crazy?

Does he have any idea how much money I have invested over the past decades to get these supporters on the List?  Does he know how I had to beg and solicit funds to be able to pay to win my seat?  I paid for my supporters to fly in to Anguilla and fill out the form to be put on the List in the first place.  Every election I pay for them to fly in to Anguilla to vote for me.  And, now I must waste all that money and effort I have invested, and have to start all over again?  Never happen!

Ten years ago we managed to get the old system of periodic enumeration replaced by the present system of continuous registration.  Under the old system every five years the old Voters’ List was abandoned, and the new one was prepared from scratch.  We and the Opposition both agreed the old system was cumbersome and expensive.  We knew that once we could trick the electoral office into registering all our disqualified supporters, and we abolished the enumeration process, they could never be removed from the List until they died.  Even after they died, we could keep them on for years more.  Now he wants us to abandon all that investment and face the uncertainty of a cleaned up List?  No way!

We incumbent politicians love our Voters’ List.  Leave our Voters’ List alone!

And, no, we are not going to the public to explain anything to them.  Anguillians don’t want to know.  They are mushrooms; they like being kept in the dark.

Yours Sincerely,”

[Name of the author withheld at his request]

Latest Disappointments

Latest Disappointments in Electoral Reform – Letter to the Editor of The Anguillian Newspaper

Dear Mr Editor,

Your readers will be aware that government has now published on its website a Bill for an Elections Act, 2019 (the 2019 Bill). http://www.gov.ai/documents/Elections%20Act%202019%20-%20BILL%20Final%20for%20consultation.pdf.  I have to register my disappointment at this attempt by government to sneak this 2019 Bill into law.  I invite everyone to have a look at the table of contents at the beginning of the document if you do not have the time to read the entire 2019 Bill.

This is supposed to be Government’s effort to bring into effect the election-related recommendations of the 2017 Report of the Constitutional and Electoral Reform Committee (the 2017 Report).  But, the 2019 Bill omits two of the most sincerely desired and widely welcomed reforms to our elections procedure recommended by the 2017 Report.  These were: (1) the revision of the Voters’ List by holding a new enumeration, and repeating it every ten years; and (2) introducing into our elections procedure for the first time provisions for campaign financing regulation.  We can’t revise the Voters’ List and clean it up unless the law provides for enumeration to be held periodically.  We can’t prevent vote-buying unless the law obliges politicians to publish their accounts.  Under the recommendations of the 2017 Report, all politicians and political parties were going to be required under heavy penalties to publish their audited financial statements in a timely fashion.

I say “sneak into law” because of the applicability of Mr Hubert Hughes’ well known aphorism.  He said, “If you want to keep something secret from Anguillians, most of whom do not read, you have only to write it down on paper and put the paper in front of them.  They will never read it.”  In Anguilla, to be transparent and accountable about some important new proposal, it is necessary to talk to the people and explain what you propose.  It is not sufficient merely to write it down and put the paper on a website and never speak openly about it.

Government has now held its first public meeting on Tuesday May 14 to present the 2019 Bill to the public.  This was at St Augustine’s Anglican Church at East End.  I was away from Anguilla, and was not able to attend the consultation.  But, a perusal of an article in the 17 May Anguillian Newspaper appears to show that none of the government representatives at the consultation took the opportunity to explain what was being proposed (by way of deviating from the major recommendations).

In addition to being a betrayal of Anguillian expectations, I believe this 2019 Bill is contrary to what our government promised Lord Ahmad (the British Minister for the Overseas Territories) would be the way going forward.  Lord Ahmad, it will be recalled, gave in to government’s request to urgently introduce by Order in Council the constitutional and electoral changes taken from the 2017 Report that they wanted done immediately.  In exchange, government agreed that they would thereafter turn their attention to implementing the remainder of the constitutional and electoral reform proposals set out in the 2017 Report.  Government promised Lord Ahmad that they would enact ALL of the major constitutional and electoral reform proposals, save where they secured the approval of Anguillians to making any variation.  Government appears not to be living up to that promise.

All well-intentioned Anguillians must demand that the Attorney-General’s Chambers incorporate in the 2019 Bill the omitted recommendations for cleaning up the Voters’ List and for introducing campaign financing regulation.  The sections have already been drafted in the main part following best practice elsewhere in the Caribbean and can easily be incorporated.  Only bad faith with the Anguillian public would cause the provisions to continue to be left out.

If your readers consider this matter important enough, they will make their views known at any future “town hall” meeting and at every other opportunity and through every medium until government accedes to the wishes of the people.  They might indicate their dissatisfaction directly to their elected representatives.  Letters, emails, telephone calls, WhatsApp and other electronic messages to their elected representatives will help.  A quiet word at the Post Office, in the supermarket, or outside church on Saturday or Sunday mornings would not hurt.  Hopefully, government will as a result of public pressure come to its senses and do the right thing.

If any of your readers should have any question on any of this, they should not hesitate to contact me by email at idmitch@anguillanet.com.

Anguilla Business Licences

The snickering from the lawyers’ benches in the Anguilla House of Assembly on the afternoon of Wednesday 20 February 2019 was audible the length and breadth of the island.  The Assembly was debating and passing into law the Business Licence Moratorium Act 2019.  The Hon Pam Webster, the sole member of the Opposition in the House of Assembly, was absent.  She was in the British Virgin Islands serving as the Head of the Election Observer Mission for the 25 February general elections.  She was not able to make her contribution.  So, the Bill passed without real discussion or dissent.

A little background may be useful.  The Trades, Businesses, Occupations and Professions Licensing Act is the principal Act to which the moratorium applies.  Section 7 creates an obligation for persons carrying on any trade, business, occupation or profession in Anguilla to pay a fee to government and obtain an annual Licence.  Every rum shop, lawyers’ chambers, engineering firm, or grocery should annually pay a Licence fee into the Treasury.

This Act is not unique to Anguilla.  It is found around the Leeward Islands.  It was introduced in about the 1970s to ensure that every business was placed on some sort of record, and was obliged to pay a tax or fee.  As there is usually in the islands no income tax law that applies to individuals, government would otherwise be unaware of what little businesses are being carried on in the island.

The Licence fee is payable for every place of business.  I well remember Clement Daniels’ consternation in the early 1980s when I advised him that he had to pay for a separate Licence for each of his two Galaxy Supermarket outlets, the one in Wallblake and the other in South Valley, barely a half mile apart.  Still, they were two separate places of business.

There is case law on the Trades, Businesses, Occupations and Professions Licensing Act.  In or about 1997, the Antigua version of the Act said that when a person applied for his or her business to be licensed, the Minister “may” issue a Licence.  In other words, the grant of a Licence was not automatic.  The Antigua Act appeared to give the Minister a discretion whether to issue a Licence to persons who paid for their annual Licence.

The Antigua and Barbuda Bar Association, the medical profession and others brought legal proceedings to challenge the law.  They objected, among other matters, to the discretion being given to the Minister to determine who could be licensed as a lawyer or a doctor.   Ann Goodwin (now Ann Henry QC) was at the time the President of the Antigua and Barbuda Bar Association.  The case was brought in her name among others.

They won in the High Court and in the Court of Appeal.  These courts both ruled that the Act was unconstitutional.  In its judgment in the case of A-G v Goodwin et al (Antigua CA 10/1997, unreported) the Court of Appeal upheld the judgment of Justice Redhead in the High Court.  Once the applicant satisfies the requirements of the Act and pays the fee, there is no discretion to refuse.  The Licence must be automatically issued.  There is under the Act no power for the minister to regulate who can carry on business.  The Minister had\s no discretion to refuse to grant a Licence.

The Business Licence Moratorium Act 2019 (assuming the Governor assents to it) recites that,

WHEREAS it is in the public interest that a temporary moratorium prohibiting the granting of licences under section 7 of the Act is adopted so that the Government of Anguilla may review the business licence regime in order to regulate the grant of such licences in relation to clearly defined categories of enterprise and business activities having regard to the emerging needs of the economy of Anguilla and to protect and safeguard certain Anguilla businesses; . . .

Essentially, section 2(1) imposes a moratorium for a year on the grant of all Business Licences.  That is bad enough, but what is more worrying, the Bill provides for exceptions to be made.  Section 2(2) provides

Notwithstanding subsection (1), the Permanent Secretary shall have the power, after consultation with the Minister of Finance, to grant or refuse a licence during the period of the moratorium to any person having regard to all relevant considerations and the overarching policy of the Government in respect of the animating purpose of the moratorium and review of the legislative regime for the grant of such licences.

This sub-section provides an exception for the Permanent Secretary, after consultation with the Minister, to grant a Licence during the moratorium.  It is a general principle of common sense that any law which allows a politician to make an exception to a regulatory law is an invitation to wrongdoing.

Persons will assume that either the loophole will be taken advantage of through corrupt means, or, the real reason for introducing the loophole was to invite corrupt offers.  It was not that long ago that a previous minister in Anguilla was charged by the police with assault for demanding sexual favours in return for exercising his power to instruct the issue of work permits to foreigners where such permits had previously been refused by the relevant government official.

One reason for the Bill may be to get around the Ann Goodwin case.  It gives a discretion to the PS (who, of course, often does what his Minister tells him to do) to make an exception to the moratorium and to give a suitable applicant the necessary Licence to start up a new business.  That is, this Act creates a power for a politician, the Minister, for the first time, to be able to decide which Anguillian entrepreneur can start up a business and which ones will be blocked by pointing at the Act and saying, “I’m sorry.”  This must be a very worrying development.

A suspicious person may see other reasons for a government introducing such a measure.  The first reason could be to invite an offer for high government officials to be paid off for the making of an exception.  The second could be that Executive Council wishes to devise a way to stop certain types of businesses from opening up in Anguilla, or to stop certain types of persons from doing business in Anguilla.

The first theory above is doubtful.  No one could seriously suggest such a thing.  The second is more likely since there is a huge ground-swell against foreign-owned businesses that have been allowed into Anguilla over the past 40 years.  It seems that every month a new foreign-owned mega-store is being constructed.  These foreign businesses have been beating local businesses into the dirt through their access to much cheaper foreign government and foreign private investment capital.  Their running costs are further reduced by importing dozens of impoverished fellow-countrymen who are willing to work for several years stocking shelves for little remuneration besides board and lodging.  Few if any locals are employed.  This allows foreign-owned shops to be much more competitive than local Anguillian ones.

It may not be long before ABC Supplies, Ace Hardware, Albert’s Marketplace, Anguilla Trading, Apex, Ashley & Sons, Benny’s, Best Buy, Lake’s Do It Best, JW Proctor’s and Romcan (our prominent local groceries and dry goods stores) are forced to close their doors.  Indeed, if I heard a comment on radio correctly, the principal reason for the new law is to restrict the numbers of foreign business opening up in competition with Anguillian businesses.

Of course, the whole exercise may just be for show, designed as smoke and mirrors for the upcoming general elections.  There must be some political pressure on government as a result of the recent failure of a locally owned business, Tropical Distributors, to challenge in court the issue by government to a foreign-owned business of a business licence, resulting in losses by the local business to its foreign competitor, International Wines and Spirits.[1]  The Court of Appeal in an oral judgment in January 2019 dismissed the appeal from the High Court, promising to deliver written reasons at a later date.  At the time of writing, these had not yet been seen.  In this scenario, the main reason for the Bill would be to allow government to demonstrate they are taking action to stop this situation from arising again.

Over the past decades, foreigners who apply for business licences in Anguilla soon learn that once they are prepared to give away a 10 or 20% interest in the business to a politically favoured individual (officially referred to by government officials as “partnering”), the process for receiving the licence is smoothened.  Interestingly, no land development planning regulations seem to apply to these partnership enterprises any longer.  While the Planning Department obliges all locally owned businesses to provide customer parking seemingly the area of a football field, few foreign-owned businesses are made to provide parking for more than three or four vehicles.  This anomaly raises suspicion and distrust among the public.

In light of these two factors, one must question whether Government officials could have any interest in genuinely stopping or restricting foreign-owned businesses from out-competing local businesses.  Government officials could have no interest in limiting foreign-owned businesses, only in encouraging them.  In this scenario, this law could not be intended to restrict foreign-owned businesses.

In any event, as the lawyers are well aware, there are at least two reasons why the Moratorium Act will be ineffective.  The law will be incapable of giving effect to the supposed policy decision of the government of Anguilla to limit the future start-up of new foreign-owned businesses.

The first reason is the principle of ‘ultra vires’.  The main Act, the Trades, Businesses, Occupations and Professions Licensing Act, at section 14 enables the Governor in Council to make regulations “prescribing anything required to be prescribed by this Act and generally for the better carrying out of the provisions thereof.”

This wording does not grant a power for the government to make Regulations as the Moratorium Act proclaims, “to regulate the grant of such licences in relation to clearly defined categories of enterprise and business activities having regard to the emerging needs of the economy of Anguilla and to protect and safeguard certain Anguilla businesses.”  This wording is much wider than the principal Act allows.  The principal Act is purely a taxing Act.  It is not one designed for regulating businesses, far less for regulating who can or cannot carry on a business.

The result is that any attempt by the government to make Regulations under the Trades, Businesses, Occupations and Professions Licensing Act to regulate the grant of Licences “in relation to clearly defined categories of enterprise and business activities (having regard to the emerging needs of the economy of Anguilla and to protect and safeguard certain Anguilla businesses)” will be illegal.  In legal language the Regulations will be ultra vires, or outside the power, of the principal Act.

The second reason and real issue is the applicability of the Immigration Act.  Under this Act, the government has all the powers it needs to regulate which non-Anguillians are permitted to enter Anguilla.  This is the appropriate law for regulating which foreigners are allowed into Anguilla, and, in consequence, which of them can apply for a work permit or a Business Licence to be allowed to conduct business in Anguilla.

You may think it is perfectly appropriate for the government to determine that at this time in its history Anguilla has provided safe refuge to enough foreigners of a certain ethnicity, and to refuse to allow any more into the island to conduct business or otherwise.  Immigration officers already issue all visiting foreign nationals with a tourist visa for a limited time.  After that time is up, their continued presence on Anguilla will be illegal.

Indeed, the Immigration Department can tomorrow send its officers around to every one of these business places in Anguilla, and round up and deport all of the many persons working illegally in them.  All those “family members” who have been granted work permits to be on the island for a year can be informed the permits will be rescinded when they expire.  They do not have to wait for political instructions from the governor to carry out their duties.  One has to wonder at the real reason for the failure to take this action.

If the Immigration Act is not strictly enforced, once the foreigner has been allowed into the island, he can easily arrange with his compatriots to pretend to be a cousin who is “helping out” in the shop.  He does not need to apply for a Business Licence if he is merely a family member or an employee working in the shop.  After a few years, when he has paid off his indentureship and learned some English, he can apply for his own Licence.  With or without this Act, he will receive his Licence once he grants some favoured individual the usual pro bono publico 20% interest in the business.  And, once he has resided here long enough to acquire local rights, he can close down his enforced partnership and start a new solely-owned business free of its enforced partnership burden.

This Bill will be completely ineffective in stemming the flood of foreign entrepreneurs flowing unrestricted into Anguilla, if indeed that is the intention.  We need to apply strictly the provisions of the existing Immigration Act.  No new law is needed.  We need to enforce the existing ones.

The British Government has a fundamental objection to an Overseas Territory controlling immigration on the basis of race or religion.  The result is that any local government which wants to protect local businesses from foreigners of a certain ethnicity will be obliged to find a way around British objections.  There is no reason why they could not use the same techniques and procedures applied recently to stem the flow into Anguilla of Venezuelan and Santo Domingan businesswomen.

So, what is the reason for this legislative fiasco?  It seems to me there are two explanations.  First, the Bill was never previously published (other than on 13 February in the Official Gazette, which no one but a few lawyers reads) until it appeared on 18 February in the Order Paper for its second and third readings and passage into law in the House of Assembly on 20 February.[2]  When the first reading of the Bill took place on 12 February 2019, there was no live link to the draft text on the Order Paper.[3]  Nor was the text of the Bill published anywhere else.  No member of the public had any idea what was being proposed.  This was highly unusual, and should have raised suspicions that something fundamentally wrong was being pursued.

Normally in Anguilla, a Bill is published long before it is passed into law.  It is even circulated to the Bar for comment.  This gives lawyers and members of the public a chance to make an input.  Errors and omissions can be avoided.  In this case, the text was published on the government website (by including a live link on the Order Paper) for the first time only two days before the debate and passage into law took place.  No one outside the Executive Council knew in advance what was proposed so they could helpfully comment on it.  No member of the public was afforded an opportunity to make any comment before it was rushed into law.  This conduct was highly unusual, and gives rise to justifiable suspicion about the motives of the promoters of this Bill.

The second reason for the fiasco was that those responsible for the Bill waited until the Hon Pam Webster, the only member of the Opposition in the House, was absent from Anguilla.  Since the text of the Bill was not published for the first reading, I doubt that she ever saw a copy prior to the passage of the Bill into law.  This is more egregious conduct than giving members of the public no prior notice of the Bill.  She sits as the sole member of the Opposition in the Anguilla House of Assembly, and was the only member of the House qualified or likely to speak in opposition.  Where is the Accountability, Transparency and Integrity we were promised?

Will this prove to be a case of a lack of transparency being the petard upon which a Bill was hung?  Or is this law merely an effort to put an even greater squeeze on foreign direct investment?  With this law in place, maybe it becomes possible to demand a 30% shareholder interest from now on to ensure an exception is made.

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[1]       https://www.eccourts.org/tropical-distributors-company-limited-v-permanent-secretary-ministry-of-finance/

[2]       http://www.gov.ai/documents/hoa/Business%20Paper%20-%20Seventy%20Second%20Meeting%20of%20First%20Session%20of%20Elventh%20Anguilla%20House%20of%20Assembly%2020%20Feb.pdf

[3]       http://www.gov.ai/documents/hoa/Business%20Paper%20-%20Seventy%20First%20Meeting%20of%20First%20Session%20of%20Elventh%20Anguilla%20House%20of%20Assembly%2012%20Feb.pdf

Spoiler Alert: Red Snapper

I inquired of the manager if there was fresh Snapper on the menu.  He told me yes, and I asked for it to be sautéed.  Instead, I got a filet of Swai.  Now, I have eaten plenty of Tilapia and Swai in my time.  I have eaten even more Snapper than Swai.  I know the difference.

After Merchant’s Market started importing Swai two or three years ago, Scott Hauser was, I believe, the first restauranteur to start offering it on the menu of his now-closed Valley Bistro.  But, Scott never claimed it was anything but Swai.  If you wanted fish at Valley Bistro, there was no point in asking for Snapper.  The waitress politely told you the only fish they had was Swai.  Whenever I felt like ordering fish at Valley Bistro, I took the Swai.  The choice was mine.  I was perfectly comfortable with that.

Swai is a freshwater mudfish native to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam.  It is now extensively farmed in the Mississippi Delta.  Tilapia is an African mud-fish that has for decades been farmed and eaten in the West Indies.  Swai is relatively new to our kitchens.  While Tilapia delivers a very thin filet, Swai is bulkier.  But, the two share the same fresh-water, mudfish texture and flavour.

Red Snapper sautéed in oil

In addition to the difference in texture from Snapper, Swai is completely without any taste.  It has neither the texture nor the taste of Snapper, which is a sea-water fish with a real flavour.  Swai is so soft and texture-less that you can chew it between your tongue and the top of your mouth.  Snapper, no matter how fresh it is, needs to be chewed with the teeth before it can be swallowed.  A fried egg has more texture than Swai. 

Red Snapper sautéed in butter

Sautéed Snapper easily divides into separate flakes under your fork.  The flakes of sautéed Swai are glued together in a porridge-like mess.  Additionally, sautéed Snapper almost invariably comes on your plate with the skin on the outside.  Sautéed Swai is served without the skin, and bears the identical porridge-like appearance on both sides.  It is quite easy to distinguish Swai from Snapper on your plate.

Sauteed Swai

The advantage of Swai to our local restaurants is clear.  It comes in a tower of easily separated filets.  It stacks snugly in the freezer.  It takes up much less room in the freezer than Snapper.  It comes without the labour of fileting the fish yourself, as you must do with fresh Snapper.  It costs a fraction of the price, and if charged as Snapper produces a greater profit for the unscrupulous restaurant.  I suspect that most tourists don’t know the difference, and will cheerfully swallow the Swai, believing it is Snapper.  No Anguillian fish-lover will be easily fooled.  A good rule of thumb is that if it has no fish taste and melts in your mouth, it is Swai.  If it has a salty-sweet fish taste, and flakes in your mouth, it is Snapper.  Assuming it can be done, no competent chef would prepare Snapper to make it taste like Swai.

On this occasion, since I had been promised fresh Snapper, I assumed a simple error had been made.  I asked the waitress to take it back to the kitchen and to bring me instead the promised fresh Snapper.  She took the plate off the table and went off to the kitchen.  Some minutes later she came back with a second dish.  She assured me that she had checked the refrigerator herself and could promise me that it was Snapper.  But to my mortification it was a different plate of the same Swai.  I asked her to take it back and left the restaurant, paying only for the two beers I had consumed while waiting.  I felt cheated and disappointed.

Red Snapper sautéed in oil by Martha Stewart

Let me make it clear that, save for the points I have made about Swai above, I have no objection to Swai being served in restaurants.  But, it is important for restaurateurs to be honest with the customer.  The customer may quite happily accept Swai if told that is what it is.  Or, the customer has the option to request a different dish.  This shows honesty and integrity.  You are happy to come back again.  A restaurant dishonestly serving Swai in place of Snapper is, in my view, in the same category as a restaurant serving cat and calling it lamb.  You probably won’t want to go back to it again.

 Since writing this, I have spoken to both the manager of the restaurant in question, and to the senior chef.  They both assure me that they have never served Swai in their restaurant, and that the Snapper I was served may simply have been overcooked.  I have no reason to doubt them.  But, they do need to speak to that cook.  Any decent chef ensures that sautéed snapper is not cooked for more than 2 minutes and 59 seconds on either side.  The cook in this case showed pure genius in so overcooking fresh Snapper that it appeared transformed into frozen Swai.