Anguilla Lottery

Something Rotten in the State of Denmark.

I recently received correspondence about the Anguilla Lottery. I do not know what the status of this entity is. I recall that John Benjamin lost his right to publish “Talk Your Mind” on Radio Anguilla for permitting someone to question the motivation for certain government-connected persons to start up a lottery in Anguilla, contrary at the time to the provisions of the criminal law. This is what my correspondent had to say:

May I add to your list of boards and committees under a public trust a very suspicious entity, not a Government Board as such, but doubtless owned by Ministers and maybe others in the Government. That is the partnership which takes a percentage of all bets on the Government approved monopoly lottery. To an old hand, there is a certain odor there.

What is he talking about? Do you, dear reader, know anything about how the public lottery operates? If it is as questionable as my correspondent suggests, please let us know.

Freedom of Information

Freedom of Information: Guest Editorial
In California, the open meeting/access to public documents statute is called the Ralph M. Brown Act. It is extremely useful and works very well, and has changed the relationship between the people and their governments. (It applies to all public agencies in the State - not just state agencies but cities, counties, school districts, sewer treatment districts, everything.) But the preamble is one of my favourite things in the English language:

The Ralph M. Brown Act

California Government Code

Sections 54950-54962

54950. In enacting this chapter, the Legislature finds and declares that the public commissions, boards and councils and the other public agencies in this State exist to aid in the conduct of the people's business. It is the intent of the law that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly. The people of this State do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.

Environment

Environmental Charter.
Has anyone seen Anguilla’s Environmental Charter? A copy of it signed by the Hon Chief Minister of Anguilla, Osborne Fleming, and Baroness Amos of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the UK on our behalf on 21 September 2001 can be read by clicking here. Does anyone in public office in Anguilla have any word of information for us, the public, on how we are matching up to the commitments we made in this Charter. After all, it is supposed to be a Charter promising a variety of things that our government will do for the benefit of the Anguillian public.

Immigration Fraud

Tanya’s Story.

In May last year, Tanya, a 19-year old Zimbabwean, was at the center of a UK investigation that resulted in the Home Office minister, Tony McNulty, being moved from his post. One immigration official was sacked from his job and is now the subject of a criminal investigation. Tanya helped to expose his disgusting crime of offering to help asylum seekers with their applications to remain in the UK in exchange for sex.

Far from being rewarded, Tanya now faces a threat of deportation back to her troubled country. Not surprisingly, she says she would rather die than return to her home country, which as we all know is a hell-hole plagued by violence.

You can read the original exposee in the Guardian newspaper by clicking here. here. You can also read all about the recent threat to deport Tanya in the Guardian by clicking here.

What is the relevance of this story to Anguilla? Nothing like that would happen here, you say? That is just what we are going to have a look at.

Freedom of Information

Open Government.

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 came into force in England on 1 January 2005. England thus joined more than 50 countries in having freedom of information legislation.

The Act is intended to promote “open government”, craved at the highest political levels. According to the manifesto of the governing Labour Party, “unnecessary secrecy in government leads to arrogance in government and defective policy decisions”. The Act can be used as a tool with which public bodies will be forced to become more transparent about their day-to-day operations and functions. The desired effect is to increase the accountability of such public bodies. The Act imposes a duty on all public authorities to release information unless it is exempt. The Act thus requires a fundamental shift in the way the public sector has to operate. It is a case of moving away from the historic need-to-know to the new right-to-know.

Do not be alarmed by the suggestion that freedom of information rights might allow another person access to information personal to you such as tax records. The English Act dovetails with the Data Protection Act. The FOIA cannot be used to obtain information personal to others if the release of that information would breach data protection principles. Any local provision can be designed to ensure that it is not abused. If freedom of information is a good thing it should be set out as law rather than a policy which may, from time to time, be departed from.

Planning

Land Development Control Committee.
When is the last time the Land Development Control Committee bothered to tell the people what it is doing? It has been some years since I have seen a published report. The last was in the year 2004, and you can see a copy of its then published report by clicking here.

That is three years ago. There must have been lots of applications for development permission dealt with since then.

To see how it is done in the Falkland Islands read the story by clicking here.

One other point you will pick up when you read the article. In the Falkland Islands the elected members of the Legislative Council are called “councilors”. They are so lacking in arrogance that they don’t even capitalise the word!

Drug Dealing

Primary Schools at Risk.
One of our best primary schools in Anguilla is the Stoney Ground Primary. It is situated at the Stoney Ground end of the Queen Elizabeth Avenue. It stands behind the pretty pink wall on the right in the photograph below. It is staffed by dedicated teachers. Some of the brightest and best taught high school students come from that primary school. Its dedicated teachers succeed in spite of the environment they work in.

Leaning on the eastern wall of the school is a “restaurant”. Its principal sale items appear to be rum and beer. At all hours of the day there are crowds of young men standing around outside drinking alcohol. They are drinking and talking and intermingling with the schoolchildren as they go to and from the school. Their drunken loutish shouting can be clearly heard in the schoolyard. What in God’s name prevailed on the police to permit a liquor licence to an establishment that is practically leaning on the wall of a primary school? Is no one in the Education Department or in the Royal Anguilla Police Force conscious of how inappropriate this is? The purpose of the annual Liquor Licence Court is to give the police and members of the public an opportunity to object to the grant of a licence to an inappropriate establishment. Is none of them bold enough to make a protest at the annual liquor licence court? The location of this establishment clearly makes it inappropriate for it to hold a liquor licence. No properly advised magistrate would renew the licence if the circumstances were pointed out to her. Perhaps one or two of the parents should be turning up to make a protest when the licence comes up next for renewal. Just my suggestion. Or, is every parent too afraid of retaliation?

Liquor sale and consumption outside the school wall is not the only negative influence in the environment that the teachers at the Stoney Ground Primary School have to contend with. As if that were not bad enough, on the opposite side of the Avenue from the “restaurant” is one of the most notorious drug dealing establishments in Anguilla. There is a steady stream of customers all day long. Some of them pretend to be attending the “restaurant”. The dealer runs out from his house and crosses the road to sell his drugs on the steps of the restaurant. The dealing is done in open sight of all passers by. The customer buys a beer and drives off. Children walk to and from school past this activity, day after day. It goes on right in front of their eyes. No one does anything about it. It is almost as if the activity is invisible to adult eyes. Is it that only the children know about it?

The restaurant is said to be owned by a retired Anguillian police officer. I am quite sure that had nothing to do with the reluctance of the police to object to the granting of the liquor licence. Men of principle and integrity would never have allowed such a matter to influence them in doing their duty. They must have a very good reason why, after all these years of broad daylight drugs dealing and sale of alcohol outside the school wall, they have failed to arrest a single person or take a single step to provide a safe environment for our primary school children. I just do not know what it is. Do you?

I took the photograph below on a quiet Sunday. I do not recommend you try to do the same on a workday in broad daylight. Innocent tourists photographing the pretty primary school have been known to get chased by cars filled with tough young men carrying guns.