I have had a look at the Social Security Act to see if there is any control on how the fund is to be administered. Section 3 sets up the Social Security Board. By the Schedule to the Act the Board is to consist of 7 persons to be appointed by the Minister of Finance, viz, the Director, 2 representatives of Government; 2 representatives of employers; and 2 representatives of employed persons. Sounds eminently fair, and no doubt it would be, if only it worked like that. (The Social Security Act should be able to be read on the Board’s website, but both links provided are dead!)
Needless to say, immediately after the general elections of February 2010 the new Minister of Finance (Hubert Hughes) fired the cronies of the previous Minister of Finance (Victor Banks) who had been appointed to the Board and appointed instead his own cronies. The rule in Anguilla , as elsewhere, is the winner gets all.
We know who the new members of the Board are from The Anguillian Newspaper. They are Thomas Astaphan, chairman; Alkins Rogers, vice-chairman; Timothy Hodge, Director; Dr Aidan Harrigan, member; Evan Lake, member; Pastor Victor Hugo Brooks, member; Kirkley Carty, member. Astaphan and Harrigan represent Government; Carty and Lake are said to represent employers; and Rogers and Brooks to represent employees.
Section 12 of the Act sets up a Social Security Fund Investment Committee. The Committee is said to consist of the Chairman (Tommy Astaphan), the Permanent Secretary Finance (Kathleen Rogers); two persons nominated by the Minister, and the Director (Timothy Hodge). That amounts to almost complete control of the funds available for investment by government officers from the Ministry of Finance. More worrying, a search of the Social Security website, four months after the general elections of February 2010, does not reveal who are the other two members of the Investment Committee. The membership of neither the Board nor the Investment Committee is mentioned on the Board’s website.
They've removed the Social Security Act from their website? Is there something in the Act they don't want us to know? This is Hubert's "open and transparent government"? They were all so very friendly up until election day. Now they're treating us as if we're the enemy. And I resent it.
ReplyDeletefrom a different vantage point, I wonder why the financial statements have not been posted to the ssbai website since 2006? We should have audited statement posted for those years to see what has been happening.
ReplyDeleteWe desperately need the freedom of information act to find out just where our social security money is.
ReplyDeleteCan we use the UK FOI against the uk foriegn office for the same information regarding Anguillas finances including social security as i assume the Anguillan government must report to the UK via the governor the state of affairs here. Surely the British must be watching who is getting our social security monies.
It might be an idea to ask the EEC to investigate where the social security monies are going after all this does sound like a section of human rights. We need to find out where every bit of Anguillas revenue is going.
Dr Aidan Harrigan seems an odd choice to be on the board as he wants Anguilla to borrow to pay the payroll,he stated this at one of the early meetings, he should not be in any position to influence how social security is used as he is on the governments payroll. Anyone else on the government payroll should no be on the board.
NYT has a story on Indian FOIA this morning: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/world/asia/29india.html?th&emc=th
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