Pandora's Box

 

In Greek mythology, Pandora was given a box by the gods and warned that she must never open it.  But Pandora was curious and the urge to open the box overcame her.  She looked in it.  Horrible things flew out of the box.  These included greed, envy, hatred, pain, disease, hunger, poverty, war, and death.  All of life’s miseries were let out into the world.  Pandora slammed the lid of the box back down.  Only hope remained inside the box.  Ever since, humans hold on to this hope to survive the wickedness that Pandora let out.

So, we warn against opening Pandora’s box.  This means that when someone makes a single, simple miscalculation it can be a source of endless complications or trouble.

Today, Thursday 22 October, members of the Constitutional Reform Committee, including me, received an email from the Ministry of Home Affairs with a draft Order in Council attached.  It says it will be signed by the Privy Council on 11 November 2020.  That is barely 14 days away.  It will amend our 1982 Constitution.

It is true that the proposed amendment appears to be of minor significance.  It merely prohibits the House of Assembly from appointing one of the two ex-officio members, the Attorney-General or the Deputy Governor, to serve as Deputy Speaker.  In future, the Deputy Speaker must be one of the elected members who is not a Minister of government.  It is not a big issue.  That is not the point.  It is the way the government is going about amending our Constitution that is the concern.

No one has explained to us what is so wrong about one of these ex-officio members being called on occasionally, in case of the Speaker’s illness or absence from Anguilla, to act as Speaker.  Nor has anyone explained why it must be a sitting member of the House who acts as Deputy Speaker.  There are several qualified, experienced, and unemployed ex-Speakers.  Any of them would, presumably, be willing to donate their services in case of emergency for a day or two.  In exchange, they might be entitled to be called “Honourable” for the next five years.

There is no issue of principle against a person from outside the House being elected Deputy Speaker.  The Constitution permits the Speaker herself to be elected from outside the House.  The present one is elected from the community.  We originally did it that way because the numbers in the House are so few.  If an elected government member is appointed Speaker, the number of debaters is reduced.  The quality of debate is diminished.  What if the government has a majority in the House of only one?  The proposed amendment would destroy that majority if no opposition member agrees to be elected Deputy Speaker.

Instead, we could have the Constitution amended to allow any person who is qualified to be elected to the House to be made the deputy Speaker, like the Speaker herself.

It is apparent that that our government has with the British government come up with this, in my opinion, meaningless and unnecessary plan without any warning or explanation to us.  No doubt, it was instigated by either or both the A-G or the DG.  They must have felt they were being imposed on.  They must have put pressure on the government to do this thing.

There was not a hint this amendment was coming.  The draft is dated 30 September 2020, so they have been working on it in secret for some weeks or months.  During all that time, our government did not think it fit to consult with us the public or to get either our input or our consent to the amendment.

It is an insignificant amendment, someone will say.  That is not the point.  A Constitution is a contract between the people and the government it elects.  A contract is made between two or more parties.  It is not permissible for one party to unilaterally amend a contract.  No, not even to change one word of it.  This is not written in the Constitution.  It is a fundamental, unwritten principle of modern British colonial constitutional law.

The British government has promised us repeatedly in the past that they will never permit our government to go behind our backs and negotiate a constitutional amendment without our approval.  If the amendment is so insignificant, why not try first to secure our approval.  If we were asked, it would not be difficult for us to show our agreement.

First, explain to us why the amendment is a good idea.  Explain what ill it is intended to cure.  Explain exactly what in the present structure is inconvenient.  As a lawyer, I may understand what the amendment is intended to achieve.  But the average Anguillian on Island Harbour beach or the South Valley main road needs to understand too.

Do not make the same mistake the previous Administration made and rush to make an amendment without consultation and agreement.  There is no indication even that the Administration intends to submit the proposed amendment to and seek the approval of the House.

The first time our government tried to amend our 1982 Constitution without public consultation and approval was in the year 2007.  The proposed amendment was to change the name of the Royal Anguilla Police Force from “Force” to “Service”.  We learned of the proposed amendment just days before the Order was to be signed in London by the Privy Council.  Our government apparently considered the amendment so minor that they made no effort to inform or seek the consent of the people.  I wrote an article about it on 17 January 2007.

The public uproar at that arbitrary and arrogant act on the part of our government was so loud that the Privy Council heard it.  They withdrew the draft Order just 10 days before it was intended to be signed.  In the end it was never signed.  There is no doubt that if we had been consulted, we would have agreed to the change.

We recall that just last year the previous Administration, in cahoots with Lord Ahmad of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, amended our Constitution without real public consultation.  They deleted some of the provisions recommended for deletion by the Constitutional and Electoral Reform Committee.  But they did not do all the recommended deletions.  They inserted some of the new provisions recommended by the Committee.  But they did not do all of them.  And they invented some new provisions of their own.  These were not recommended by anybody.

We were never given any real explanation why the proposed provisions of this 2019 Amendment Constitution were so important that they had to be rushed just before the general elections.  It was obvious to all of us that the intention of the amendments was to try to give the outgoing Administration a political advantage before the elections.

The result was a fiasco.  We ended up with a miserable abortion of an Amended Constitution.  And the government lost the election.  This betrayal of the people was, in my view, one of the main reasons why the past Administration were defeated at the polls.

There are barely two weeks between this first revelation of the proposed amendment and the day it will come into effect.  Explain to us why the amendment is so urgent and critical that it must be rushed in this way.  We are not so dumb that we cannot understand.  We are not sheep who can be forced to accept any arrogant act by government.

We endured enough secrecy over the past five years.  We did not appreciate this treatment.  The present Administration should be concerned about being compared to the last one.

We can learn from previous mistakes.  We can take the time to explain.  Ask us to accept the amendment.  Perhaps consider all the amendments that are needed and bring them all into effect at the same time.  There is no rush.

The precedent was set by the 2019 Amendment Constitution.  This Administration now feels free to negotiate constitutional change with the British government without consulting us.  Yes, there has been an announcement on the daily news bulletin that the Order in Council is going to be signed on 11 November.  But that is hardly consultation and agreement.  There is a political price to pay for perceived arrogance.

Those that wish to take advantage of us will now say that Anguillians do not place any value on the need to be consulted before our Constitution is amended.  There is nothing now to stop the British government from arbitrarily amending it in the future without even our government’s consent, far less ours.  We have opened Pandora’s Box.

Anguilla in Quarantine

 

Anguilla is a typical small island developing state.  We have a tiny population of twelve thousand persons.  But we are required to provide most of the basic services for our people that large states do.  We have the same number of people as a small village in the UK or Nigeria.  But we are obliged to have a similar infrastructure as London or Abouja, including police, customs, and immigration departments.  While the world’s economy was booming, we were easily able to pay for this luxury.

When the international leisure industry was at its peak, we could pick up the crumbs to meet our public administration bills.  Before terrorism and money laundering became a world-wide issue, we could provide liberal financial services to the international community, and cream off some of the wealth to cover our government costs.  That has all changed now.

Unlike the islands around us, Anguilla has managed to stay Covid-free since the first 3 cases in March 2020.  We have done this by imposing strict quarantine and border control regulations.  So long as we maintain quarantine regulations and border closure, we can be relatively confident that we will remain safe.  At present, we insist that anyone arriving must quarantine, initially at government’s expense, in a secure location for between 10 and 14 days, depending on whether they come from a relatively Covid-free country or not.  They must also pay a charge to cover the cost of their quarantine and the ancillary services, such as food and security personnel.  But, with the economy collapsing, the good sense of these regulations is now being questioned.

From what I hear, hotel guests are cancelling their reservations for the 2020/2021 winter season.  As a result, it seems to me that most of the major hotels of Anguilla will be obliged to shutter for the season.  Restaurants, water sports companies, car rentals, holiday apartments, and other tourism-related businesses will be forced to close.  The excuse being given by some cancelling guests is that Anguilla’s quarantine restrictions prohibit their arrival on our shores.  They say they are going to spend the winter instead in Antigua and Saint Lucia.  There, they say, the Covid-19 regulations are much laxer.  We will have to wait and see.  Personally, I very much doubt there will be much tourism to Antigua or St Lucia in the coming 2020/2021 season.  Reservations in October do not automatically equate to warm beds in December.

Unemployment increases daily.  The hotels, especially the foreign-owned ones on Anguilla’s coastline, are now pressuring government to open.  We read that they accuse us of being unreasonable in our quarantine regulations.  They loudly proclaim in the press, and on TV, and radio that it is government’s fault that staff are being fired.  They say that, if only the quarantine regulations were slackened to be the same as Antigua and St Lucia, the staff would all be back at work.

This is all nonsense, of course.  Any thinking person who keeps up with the international news knows the truth.  It does not matter if every quarantine restriction is removed.  Few visitors will come to the Caribbean this winter.  Only the most reckless US or European traveller, careless of his or her health, will visit us for a holiday.

There is the problem with air lift.  We read that the world’s major airlines are mothballing their planes and laying off their staff.  Air France, Air Canada, American Airlines, Delta Airlines, each are applying for tens of billions of dollars from their governments to help them keep afloat.  They will likely not get it since there is no more money.  The cruise lines have all laid up their ships.  It is not likely they will get any more bail outs.  It seems to me that it will take another decade, if ever, for them to recover.

The bottom line is the leisure travel industry as we knew it pre-2020 is dead.  Few international travellers will be arriving on any Caribbean shores.  In my crystal ball, I see a full one half of the luxury hotels of Anguilla abandoned.  There will be palm trees growing out of their windows before long.  Most of the luxury restaurants will have sold their pots and pans and shut for good.  No more caviar and champagne.  From now on, we dine out on johnny cake and corned beef.  We must find other ways than tourism to occupy our time and earn an income.  And none of it will be due to the strict quarantine regulations now in force.

Perhaps most ominous for Anguilla’s economy, a recent report in the newspaper indicates that government’s revenue from taxes and licences is less than half what was budgeted for this year.  This revenue is needed to pay our bloated public service their salaries and other emoluments.  The situation is not sustainable.  Something has got to give.  Logically, with only half the revenue, we must cut our costs by a half.  Either we let go half of the public service, or they all stay on, but at half of their salaries.

Even with cost-cutting, the Anguilla as we know it is not sustainable.  The nanny-state that Anguilla aspired to be in the good times is now out of our reach.  We cannot afford any more subsidised education, health care, or social services.  These will shortly have to be met by user fees.  We must cease paying the cost of hospitalising in Panama our gunshot gangster youth.  These social services will soon be a thing of the past.  We just have not realized it yet.  And it is nothing to do with the strict quarantine and border control regulations.

Then, there is the possibility of coming international political and economic instability.  Trump has threatened that he is not going to leave the White House in January.  If civil disturbances break out in the United States this winter, there will be no airlines flying out of Kennedy or Miami International Airport to the Caribbean, even without the pandemic.

It may not happen on election day, November 3, or on December 14 when the Electoral College meets.  But, if by January 21, Inauguration Day, there is turmoil all over the United States, there will likely be no leisure travel from the US to the Caribbean.  If this occurs, we cannot blame either Covid or the British for the resulting economic catastrophe.

Then, there is natural traveller caution.  Covid-19 spreads fastest through the air in confined spaces.  In early 2020 at the start of the epidemic, cruise ships were centres of infection.  They are all laid up now.  I expect that, with a few foolhardy exceptions, they will not resume their cruise schedules until 2022.

Everything depends on the availability of a safe and effective vaccine.  The epidemiologists have explained why one will not be approved until early in 2021.  Even then, it will not be widely available to us until mid- to late-2021.  Without being vaccinated, no sensible person will choose to go on holiday overseas by sea or by air.

Meanwhile, doubts and confusion about vaccinations are being spread by anti-vaxxers and other conspiracy theorists.  These operate both locally and internationally.  Recent surveys in the USA and Europe reveal that the result is that, even when a vaccine does become available, it will not quickly be taken up by everyone.  It may take years for most of the public to enjoy the benefits of vaccination.  Which one of us is going to be so negligent as to travel unvaccinated to a foreign country with medical services of an unknown quality for a holiday, amid a pandemic?  Even if Anguilla opened promiscuously, abandoning all health precautions, I do not believe that a single additional passenger will risk arriving on our shores at this time.

The conspiracy theorists are not helping.  Anguilla’s more racist conspiracy theorists are now filling the airwaves with dire warnings.  To hear their panicked voices, the UK public health system is putting pressure on Anguilla to shut our borders.  They express certainty that the white British are out to punish poor little black us.  Quite why the British would want to do such a thing to Anguilla is anyone’s guess.  But anti-British feeling, fuelled by a pernicious and ingrained racism, is prevalent among certain elements in our society.  As if the British have the slightest interest in causing Anguilla any harm!  They would probably have to pay to bail us out of it in the end, anyway.  But, there never had to be any good reason for conspiracy theories to flourish in the best of times.

Anguillians must face a new reality.  Nothing will be the same when this pandemic is over.  Public services will be pared down to a minimum.  The days when the Anguilla public service was used as a sponge to mop up the unemployed and the unemployable are over.  We can no longer afford to employ five persons to do the job of one as we presently do.

There is the little matter of our failure to enforce our own tax laws.  No enforcement proceedings have ever, to my knowledge, been brought against a single tax defaulter in the modern history of Anguilla.  We can no longer afford to continue forgiving persons who neglect to pay their taxes, as we have done for decades past.  If we do, why should any foreign taxpayer contribute to our self-created folly.

One last prediction.  The next time our government appeals to the British government for another hundred-million-dollar bail out, we will finally lose our entitlement state of mind.  The British deficit is presently about £300 billion.  I see the British PM responding to our Premier with these words, “Colonialism has been over for a long time.  We have looked at the books.  It appears that Anguilla has never in its history contributed anything to the British Treasury.  Do you not think it is about time that you helped us with our fiscal deficit?  We were thinking of a token contribution from you in the region of ten million US dollars.  How about it?”

If my cautionary words appear exaggerated to some, hopefully they will serve to counterbalance the ridiculous claim that our health quarantine regime has been imposed on our government by an oppressive and uncaring British government.

Sandy Ground Marina MOU

 

Effective 31 May 2020, the outgoing Anguilla United Front government signed a memorandum of understanding (called “a Definitive Agreement” but referred to in this article as “the MOU” or “the Agreement”) with a Swiss Group to develop a marina in the Sandy Ground’s Road Salt Pond.  The objective of the project is said to be the development, construction, and operation of a mixed-use mega-yacht marina, waterfront, and resort at a cost of some US$270 million.

A few short weeks later (on 29 June) the AUF lost the general election and was replaced by an Anguilla Progressive Movement administration.  The APM administration inherited the MOU.  Residents of Sandy Ground are calling on the new administration to repudiate the MOU.  They oppose the MOU on several grounds including that it will disrupt the village, poison the people, and produce no benefit to the country.

A first look at the MOU reveals that it is essentially a real estate development project.  The document says that the Developer will build a 150-berth marina.  Crucially, it will also build a hotel and sell ocean estate lots, port town villas, seafront residences, sea view town homes, and commercial space.  The real estate units are to be sold as condominium and time share-type properties.

Some of the objections advanced by residents of Sandy Ground include engineering, environmental, feasibility, and amenity issues.  Let us look at some of them.

The engineering objections to the development of a mega-yacht marina in the Road Pond are formidable.  The pond was apparently created in prehistoric times by a sand bank forming across the middle of the bay.  Experts can tell us approximately when this happened.  It is likely to have been many thousands of years ago, perhaps as long ago as a hundred thousand years.  During the intervening period, and from time to time, glaciers covered large areas of the earth causing sea levels to lower.  Subsequent melting of the glaciers  resulted in rising sea levels.  The result was that the sand bank was sometimes above and sometimes below the surface of the surrounding sea.  The present village of Sandy Ground is constructed on this sand bank which is no more than 10 feet above sea level.

During the periods when Sandy Ground was above sea level, sea water permeated through the sandy bank and filled the trapped bay behind.  This formed the familiar Road Salt Pond.  As the water in the pond evaporated, crystals of salt precipitated out and sank to the bottom.  For thousands of years, this salt lay unmolested on the bottom of the pond, gradually becoming compressed as more and more layers formed on top the previous ones.  Presently, the water in the pond is no more than some six inches deep.  Below that is a thin layer of mud and a much thicker layer of fossilized salt.

The old-timers among us recall when, some thirty years ago, the US TV entertainment billionaire Bob Johnson owned a villa at Cove Castles Resort in West End.  He first proposed to the then Government a project for converting the Road Pond into a Marina.  He is supposed to have had a geological survey of the bottom of the pond done to determine the feasibility of dredging it.  This survey is said to have found that there was a layer of some forty feet of rock salt overlying the deepest part of the rocky limestone basement.  One of the reasons why he was said to have dropped the idea of a marina was the advice that it would take a great deal of blasting to remove this rock salt layer.  Sandy Ground village would have to be vacated, and the people located elsewhere for a period of up to two or three years, while the blasting was carried out.  This proposition was too expensive even for a billionaire, and the project fell through.  With increased development in Sandy Ground village since that time, temporary relocation of the villagers is likely to be more expensive now than it was at that time.  No doubt Government has a copy of this feasibility study, or with a little effort can get access to it.

Even if the residents of the village do not have to be relocated, questions have been asked about the quality of the air once the mud on the bottom of the pond is disturbed.  We are all familiar with the great stink that comes from the pond from time to time.  The question is asked if a disturbance of the mud layer will result in the air flow over the village being poisoned.  Only a feasibility study of the mud layer and its qualities will reveal the true situation.

Residents doubt that another marina in the Leeward Islands is feasible.  Why would any boat owner choose to dock his mega yacht in an expensive little island like Anguilla when the established marinas of nearby St Maarten, Tortola, and Antigua are willing and able to provide all their necessities?

Reading the MOU, one gets the impression that the main interest of the Developer is not the marina but the sale of condominiums.  The proposed marina appears no more than the hook to bring in purchasers of the luxury units.  If that bait fails, the feasibility of the real estate aspect of the project also fails.

What evidence do we have that this Developer has US$270 million to invest?  The question must be asked, whether after the “great financial success” of Starwood (remember them?) and other failed projects, any other than an idiot would take this project on?  Could this project be another case of a penniless “developer” obtaining a licence or agreement with a view of going into the market to find money?

Hurricanes pass through the Leeward Islands (of which Anguilla is the most northerly) nearly every year.  Any boat (whether berthed or beached) remaining in an Anguillian harbour during a hurricane will suffer catastrophic damage.  We have seen what happens in the existing nearby marinas.  For this reason, luxury boat owners sail their vessels to Trinidad or Aruba for safety during the hurricane season which lasts for some six months.  The existing marinas in St Maarten (where they have an international airport and marine supply and diesel repair infrastructure in place) remain half-empty for much of the year.

It is notorious that insurance companies do not insure boats that remain in these waters between June and November.  Which mega yacht owner will choose to leave his valuable boat in Anguillian waters uninsured during the hurricane season?  Any new marina built in Anguilla must plan to close for six months in every year for want of business.  The associated hotel and condominiums will probably be unoccupied during this period.

With the onslaught of the Covid-19 pandemic, the holiday and cruise industries have collapsed.  The number of people who will venture overseas by ‘plane or by boat for leisure in the foreseeable future will be limited.  Mega yachts are more likely to remain safely moored in Florida or in Monaco than sailing across the seas to under-resourced destinations like Anguilla.  It is not likely there will be any market for the projected marina, hotel, or condominium units until the world-wide economy has recovered.  This must take at least the next three to five years.  Investors are not all stupid people.  The economic feasibility of such a situation is much to be doubted.

Article 8 of the MOU provides for Environmental Impact Assessments to be carried out.  Government is obliged by the MOU to approve all construction subject to adequate environmental and engineering studies.  If the Developer fails to commence work within 3 years of the effective date, Government has the right to revoke the Agreement.  It is likely that this provision will operate to save the people of Sandy Ground from the planned economic and other inconveniences that they were facing.

Article 11 provides that in the event of any disagreement between the parties, they will submit the issue to arbitration.  Government may only terminate the Agreement if the arbitration process concludes that it has the right to do so because of a material breach by the Developer that cannot be amicably resolved.  It is likely that the failure to carry out the planned development in the coming three years will provide Government with the opportunity to bring this misconceived project to an early end.  It would be quite wrong for Government to give in to public pressure and terminate the Agreement without a good reason as contemplated by the Agreement.  They will probably lose any resulting lawsuit and be obliged to pay the Developer damages.

The new administration has been lumbered with this MOU by the outgoing one.  There is probably little or nothing they can do at this time to get out of their obligation to let the preparation and planning move forward.  What the Government’s expert advisers must look out for is the opportunity in due course to use the escape clauses in the Agreement.

Necessary Cost Adjustments

 

Under the Quarantine Act and the Regulations made under it, Anguillians and residents of Anguilla returning home from certain countries that are experiencing dangerous levels of the Covid-19 disease, such as the USA, must be taken directly from the port they arrive at to an authorized place of quarantine.  There, they are provided with lodging, medical attention, security, food, and drink, all at the public expense.  This lasts for a period of approximately two weeks.  They are not allowed to pay for it.  Even if they wish to pay for their board and lodging, they are not permitted to do so.  The rules, they are told, require that this be a public expense.  Millions of dollars, I understand, have been disbursed by the past and present government on this venture since quarantines started in March.  This is an expense that was never budgeted for.  It is money that we can ill afford.  Our economy has tanked with the failure of our tourism industry since the start of the year due to the pandemic.

The House of Assembly should be asked to vote on a Bill to require persons who are detained, quarantined, or placed in isolation, to pay the costs of their quarantine.  Most if not all Anguillians will agree that this is a necessary reform.  It is unfair to the Anguillian public that we should have to pay the costs incurred by persons who choose to return to Anguilla at this time, and put us all to the risk of contracting the disease.  If returnees wish to enjoy the comfort and safety of home, they should be willing to pay for all associated costs incurred by their return from abroad.  This has become the international standard, and we will not be doing anything unusual in having our law ensure this.

Care must be taken to ensure such a provision does not offend against our constitutional right to freedom of movement.  There is an exception in cases of public health and safety.  The necessary Orders must first be made by the Governor and Executive Council under the Constitution and the Public Health Act.

It is a simple enough measure to enforce.  One of the conditions for permitting the return to Anguilla should be a payment of a deposit, say US$10,000.00, per person into the Treasury.  That would give the provision teeth.  The deposit will be refunded, less the cost of all disbursements associated with their quarantine, at the end of their quarantine.  If this proves too expensive for any would-be returnee, he or she is not obliged to make the payment.  They can simply stay where they are and save the cost of returning.

The duty to refund government’s costs should not be limited to persons who return to Anguilla with the permission of the Quarantine Authority.  It should extend to persons who enter illegally.  In the case of persons who are caught illegally entering Anguilla in breach of the Quarantine Act or any Regulations made under it, the Act should provide that one of the conditions for their release from custody is the payment of a cash bond, say US$10,000.00, to secure the refund to government of all costs incurred in their arrest and detention and medical treatment including but not limited to transportation, board, lodging, medical and other.  It should cover all costs of tracing and treating the persons who have encounter the illegal entrant.

Nor should this bond be limited to persons who want to return in the future.  There is nothing legally impossible or morally wrong in the law being drafted to authorize Government to demand a refund of part or all the past costs paid in maintaining earlier returnees in quarantine at the public expense.  Every effort should be made to recover the past costs incurred in relation to persons who have been given permission under the Quarantine Act and its Regulations to enter Anguilla since January 2020.  This may be hard on some of the persons and families affected.  They can be given time to meet the refund, and other terms.  In suitable cases, perhaps certified by the Department of Social Development after the application of a Means Test, the law might even provide for exceptions to be made.  In my view, most if not all the persons who have had their quarantine expenses paid for by government should be obliged to refund all the costs that were paid out of public funds.

What is certain is that we cannot continue to meet this expense.  We simply do not have the money in the public purse.  In one of his last speeches in the House of Assembly, the outgoing Minister of Finance revealed that our projected tax revenue for the year 2020 will be about one half of the amount budgeted.  Further, we do not know how long the quarantine provisions will have to continue into the future.  Given the irresponsible behaviour of the US and certain other governments in dealing with their own infections, it might last until well into 2022.

Since I wrote the above paragraphs, someone has pointed out to me a draft Quarantine (Amendment) Bill on the Order Paper for debate on 11 August.  It is a noticeably short Bill.  It provides,

“(1a) Notwithstanding subsection (1) the Quarantine Authority may require persons who are detained, quarantined or in isolation pursuant to this Act to pay in part or in full the expenses incurred by the Quarantine Authority in detaining, quarantining or isolating such persons.”

This is inadequate.  It is a token provision.  It is for show only.  It lacks teeth.  It is filled with loopholes.  It gives a power to charge the costs without any mechanism for collection. 

Bearing in mind that the Constitution limits the power of the Assembly to pass an Act restricting our freedom of movement, care must be taken to ensure that the necessary State of Emergency and Public Health Orders and Proclamations are renewed from time to time.  The ones made earlier this year all appear to have expired without being renewed.  Without care being taken, any law restricting entry into Anguilla by Anguillians may be unconstitutional and unenforceable.

And, while we are on cost cutting measures, is there any reason why a 40% tax cannot be imposed on all pensions previously paid to Ministers and Parliamentarians?  These payments have been a huge drain on our Treasury.  They have met with universal condemnation in Anguilla.  I do not have the exact figures at hand.  We have all seen various sums circulating in the media.  If these are correct, we have paid out tens of millions of dollars in the past several years in gratuities and pensions to retiring parliamentarians.  They need to do their part now that we are in crisis.  They need to refund some of this undeserved largess they paid themselves.  A 40% tax should be immediately imposed retroactively on the pensions and gratuities of every living parliamentarian who benefitted.  Retired parliamentarians and Ministers should be happy to agree to refund 40% of the very generous pensions and gratuities paid to them.  To answer the question at the start of the paragraph, care will have to be taken to ensure that such an Act does not offend against the protection of private property provision in the Anguilla Constitution.  If it does, then retired parliamentarians will need to be shamed into making a voluntary return of their ill-gained pensions.

Such an essential reform, if legal, is not intended to be retroactive only.  Entitlement to pension and gratuity for future retirees should be reduced accordingly, ie, by 40%.  Those who are presently in the House of Assembly and in Government would be aware of how untenable and unsustainable their overly generous pension provisions are.  There is no possible legal or moral objection that can be made to such a reduction.

While we are on the topic of curtailing benefits, why not extend the cuts to parliamentary salaries and allowances?  Anguillian politicians are in receipt of a high level of remuneration that is not matched in any other West Indian nation.  We have heard a previous Minister of Finance make a boast of the fact.  The levels of salaries were set during the 1980s and 90s when money was flowing into the Treasury like water under a bridge.  Those days are now long gone.  We cannot afford these excessive salaries any longer.  Ministers and Parliamentarians should agree in the public interest to reduce their salaries and allowances by 40% with immediate effect.  Such a contribution would meet with universal acclaim and appreciation in Anguilla.

Anguillians join in calling on Dr Ellis Lorenzo Webster, the Hon Premier and Minister of Finance, to move the necessary actions in the Executive Council.  We urge all Ministers and Ministerial Assistants to support these initiatives.  We call on all members of the Opposition to support these measures when they arrive before them as a series of Bills for debate.  We call on all members of the House of Assembly to pass the reforms into law without undue delay.

The Economy Improves

 

I learned at breakfast in town this morning that Anguilla has a new tourism-related activity.  This one is even more incredible to me than the one about us paying for overseas medical treatment for victims of drugs-turf shootings.  In fact, I am really distressed over this one.

Apparently, one of our residents returned to Anguilla recently from the USA accompanied by several family members.  The existing bar on arrivals from the USA does not apply to returning residents.  But they are required by the Quarantine Regulations to spend 14 days in government-controlled quarantine.  This is provided at a local luxury hotel.  They were all put up at government expense for the duration.  Never mind their mode of travel back to Anguilla was the most expensive there is, private jet.  There was no question of them having to pay the cost of their own quarantine.  Indeed, we were told their offer to pay their own way during the quarantine was summarily rejected.

From what we learned, once one is an Anguilla resident returning to Anguilla from the USA, not only is the bar on visitors from the USA lifted.  Your compulsory quarantine will be spent in a local hotel at public expense.  Over the past five or six months and continuing, this generous public facility has been extended to hundreds of Anguillians and Anguilla residents regardless of their means or their need.  In the early stages of the pandemic, other countries used to cover this cost.  Most have long stopped that waste of government funds.

I wonder if to enjoy this treat, we have only to make our way to the USA.  When we return home, maybe we too will be put up at public expense in a first-class local hotel for the quarantine period.  Now that we have British taxpayer money to assist, it seems there is no holding back on the spending.  Other countries with a quarantine rule oblige travellers to pay the cost of their own quarantine.  But, not Anguilla.  We are too generous with public funds to contemplate such a burden.  Not even a means test is applied.

What a blast!  More of us should be encouraged to take advantage of this generosity.  This project deserves the widest publicity.  We must ensure it is taken up by everyone in need of a free holiday.

Also, at breakfast, I learned that the Government of Anguilla does not spend unbudgeted public funds only on quarantining returning residents.  For years, we have been sending young men who have been either shot during drugs-turf and other disputes or suffered serious accidents abroad for medical treatment.  We jet these patients by air ambulance to hospitals in Central America free of charge.  We cheerfully pick up their hospital bills.  There is no question of obliging the patient or his family to cover the cost.

It seems that persons have long quarrelled over this abuse with the department responsible for making the arrangements.  It has been explained that the service is rendered on political instructions.  For decades, you and I may have spent a small fortune paying for health insurance and the cost of medical evacuation costs for ourselves and our families.  But, in Anguilla no question of either medical insurance or means test arises once a “medical emergency” is discovered by a Minister.  It costs us millions of dollars each year, and not a cent of it appears in the budget.  Nor is any serious attempt made to recover the cost.

Some people think this is wrong, and they are labelled unkind.  On the contrary, I think this is an example of public service we should show to the rest of the world.  We should give this programme more publicity.  We ought to broadcast its details more widely.  It could be professionally advertised.  How about the theme, “Get yourself shot in Anguilla, and stay in a first-class Panamanian or Costa Rican hospital for months while seeing the world at public expense.”  Of course, not every country is as rich as we are and can afford such largess.

Finally, at breakfast we heard another story related to our tourism product.  One of the breakfast group took a drive to Blowing Point last Friday evening to see what was happening for Carnival.  He parked in the area to the east of the ferry terminal where there is a car park.  It was dusk.

All the August Carnival festivities were over.  There was no sign of life anywhere.  No Immigration, Customs or Police Officers were in sight.  There were several other cars parked in the car park.

He says he heard a small engine coming from the direction of the entrance to the harbour.  He observed an inflatable dinghy with several persons in it.  It did not go to one of the jetties.  It carried on a further couple of hundred yards to the beach where he was.  Its passengers came ashore without the benefit of a Customs of Immigration interview.  They got into a grey car and drove off.  As he drove home, he followed them behind two or three other cars.

It drove to a well-known place of male relaxation in George Hill.  When he arrived home, he called the police number given for reporting suspicious activity.  There was no one at the other end.  Instead, he got an answering machine with a recorded woman’s voice.  The voice did not say she was a police officer, so he hung up.  He went on to the government’s website and then to the page for making reports.  He typed in his anonymous report there.  The police now have the car registration number and the address the car went to.  It is up to them to follow through.

For the life of me, I cannot think of any legitimate reason why there would be no “first responders” attending Anguilla’s main passenger port at 6:00 PM every day of the year whether a holiday or not.  To a suspicious mind like mine, it is almost as though it was pre-arranged for there to be no Officer present monitoring the port at the very time the dingy was coming ashore.

I have previously written about this famous place of business in George Hill:

https://donmitchellcbeqc.blogspot.com/2018/01/anguilla-brothel-keeping.html

https://donmitchellcbeqc.blogspot.com/2018/01/is-anguilla-civilised.html

One thing is for sure.  Anguillians are an enterprising people.  We are natural entrepreneurs.  We have a history of smuggling and ignoring the law going back hundreds of years.  The outlaw life is stamped into our DNA.  Now that government is giving us a little help in developing these natural skills, nothing can hold us back.

Reopening Villa Tourism

 

Anguilla’s borders have been closed to visitor traffic since mid-March 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Hotels and villas have had to close, and staff have been let go.  The island economy has collapsed.  Both employers and employees are close to the limit of what they can bear.  Government revenue has shrunk to half the budgeted amount.  Public expenses, meanwhile, have more than doubled.

Some of the villa owners are pressuring government to begin opening Anguilla up to tourist arrivals.  In a memo of 23 July from the Anguilla Hotel and Tourism Association to its members, there is a suggestion that villa owners and their guests be allowed in by private jet or charter from 1 August.  This is to be a soft opening preliminary to a full opening of the tourism plant this coming winter.

I have some thoughts on the suggestion that we now pull the plug on the measures that have kept us safe.

Covid-19 continues to rage throughout the world, including both the USA, our main catchment area, and Antigua, Puerto Rico and St Maarten, the hubs through which our airline passengers arrive.  The USA has the worst statistics for the disease in the entire world.

Canada and other countries that depend on tourism are not permitting anyone from the USA to enter their countries.  The USA is Europe’s biggest tourism market.  The Europeans have banned US tourists even as they open to other visitors.

Anguilla’s main defence against widespread sickness, hospitalisation and death is the availability of a safe and effective vaccine.  The likelihood is that there will not be such a vaccine this year.  The earliest would be eighteen months from the date the research institutes began to work on vaccines, ie, January 2020.  If so, this means that we cannot realistically expect to have a vaccine for Covid-19 before July 2021.  It follows that the earliest we should be considering reopening Anguilla’s borders to tourist arrivals is winter 2021.  Anything before that will almost inevitably result in our being re-infected and having to close our ports and our hotels again.

Under President Trump’s misguided leadership over the past six months, the virus has been allowed to rampage through the USA.  Why would Anguilla let any US resident in before mid-2021 when they are so evidently careless about their health?  What do they care about our health if they care so little about their own?  It would be different if we were to allow in tourists from countries where they had suppressed the Covid-19 epidemic.  But, to allow into Anguilla visitors from the USA currently is unimaginable to me.

If we do open our ports for guests of villa owners, will we be able to make them take the necessary health precautions?  Will visitors be made to produce a Covid test result that is not more than three days old showing they are clear, or be sent back on the plane they arrived on?  If they turn out later to be infected, will we be able to make them self-quarantine for 14 days?  Do we have the means or the will to police a quarantine?  These are rich and “entitled” people who are accustomed to buying their way out of any situation.

If any of them later turns up positive, we shall have to trace all their contacts and confine them to quarantine if we are to stop social spread of the virus.  Do we have adequate amounts of testing equipment?  Do we have the capability to produce timely results?  Are our health personnel trained in contact tracing?  Do we have the resources to conduct a proper tracing programme, and to enforce the resulting quarantines?

What about our stocks of Personal Protective Equipment?  Will our supplies of masks be adequate before the borders are opened?  Do we have the gowns and other PPE needed for the medical staff?  Do we have the latest models of ventilators for when we are committed to the Intensive Care Unit?  Do all the villas have adequate stocks of PPE in advance of opening for the use of staff and guests in appropriate circumstances?  Will our villa staff be trained in the correct use of this PPE prior to opening?

If we admit in visitors from the USA, and as is inevitable, the virus catches and begins to spread in Anguilla, we shall be obliged to lock the island down again for a couple more months at least, until it is contained. 

Of course, repatriation of Anguillian nationals from any country remains a continuing necessity.  Fortunately, the testing and quarantine protocols and safeguards put in place by the Health Department for dealing with repatriated Anguillians are now well practised.  Such repatriations have not resulted in any local spread of the virus since the first three cases in March.

It is arguable that the last administration suffered politically, and lost the June general election, at least partly because they chose health over economic interests.  They totally closed the island to visitors in March.  Our borders are still closed today.  The result was they limited Covid-19 cases in Anguilla to three mild ones in March.  We are free of infection today.  But the previous administration suffered serious political damage.  Many businesses closed, some permanently, and large numbers of us became unemployed.  Schools closed, and the children struggled with distance learning.

Opening our borders to visitors from a country where the infection is surging out of control will likely destroy all that our sacrifice has accomplished.  Is the present government prepared for the political backlash that will follow if they allow the virus back in to flourish for the sake of a few villa owners’ financial interests?

If we open the island to US visitors, we can expect numbers of us, not only to be committed to the ICU, but to die.  What answer will the administration give our families when they are accused of opening before the USA could flatten its own curve?  Are they ready to deal with the accusation that they allowed the villa owners to kill us off?

Other than for a short period in August, July to November are dead months for tourism in Anguilla.  It is the Hurricane season.  This is the low season for West Indian tourism.  Why open the island in this quiet period when there will be few or no tourists (other than the highly risky ones from the USA) coming by air or by sea to Anguilla?  Opening our borders to tourists of any kind now will contribute hardly a penny to either government revenue or to the economy.  There is no real economic point in reopening before late November or early December.

Are the Anguillian public prepared to deal with a new surge?  We have been safe for so long that we now all ignore the social distancing rules we used to practise in March.  People lean on shop counters, despite the printed signs; stand in line in the supermarket pressed up against each other, despite the spacing marks on the floor; and not one of us wears a mask in public.  When we let in tourists, we will need to relearn the social distancing precautions.  Will our health authorities engage us citizens in an intense social distancing revision course in the months before we let in tourists?

Finally, as Dr Fauci reminds us, we must ask what is the recommendation of the Health Authority?  What is the expert advice our Ministry of Tourism has received?  Is the recommendation that it is safe to let in visitors to villas from the USA?  Or should we wait until after a safe and effective vaccine is generally available?

Later on Friday, I was pleased to see what amounted to a Government response to the AHTA initiative on behalf of villa owners.  This was a press release titled “Covid 19 Update 13”.  It advised that Anguilla’s borders will remain closed until 31 October.  An exception is made for visitors from countries with active cases of less than 0.2% of the population, who will be allowed into Anguilla on condition.  They must comply with all relevant protocols and quarantine regulations.  That rules out visitors from the USA.  The US (with 4% of the world’s population and 25% of all Covid-19 infections) cannot meet the less than 0.2% benchmark.  We all anxiously await the arrival of a safe and effective vaccine.  I need not have worried.  No doubt, it helped that we have a physician as Premier.

24 July 2020

Revised 27 July