Abuse of Office

The power of public office must never be used to promote private interests. Though no money changes hands, the misuse of public office to promote private interests is one of the most insidious forms of corruption in public office that exists. 

It has been said that most men enter national politics for only three reasons: love of money, hope for increased sexual opportunities, and the enjoyment of power. These three primal forces are not necessarily evil in themselves. They may even work on occasion for the public good. They may also be misused, and be corrupting influences. What I have to write today involves an alleged case of the use of public power to promote a private interest. You will decide if it is corrupt.

As I am presently in St Lucia for the funeral of the late Chief Justice of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, Sir Vincent Floissac PC CMG QC LLM, I have not been in Anguilla to hear for myself. However, I have received an email describing a recent development that affects the rule of law and a possible attack on it by the head of the Executive branch of government in Anguilla.

Many years ago, I had a professional involvement in the matter in question and have some personal knowledge about it. There are some serious issues of principle that arise in these recent developments. Assuming what I have heard to be essentially correct, I am forced to write about it.

In about the year 1982, the late Dr William V Herbert and I represented two contending families in a land dispute in the High Court. I represented one family and Dr Herbert represented the others. The land in question was situated in Long Bay Village in Anguilla.

Before the trial began Dr Herbert was appointed by the government of Dr Kennedy Simmonds to represent the newly independent Federation of St Kitts and Nevis at the UN and the OAS. He was no longer able to appear in the High Court to represent parties in litigation. The members of the family that had retained him were instructed to find another attorney to appear for them in court.

On the day set for the trial in the High Court, Mr Hubert Hughes, then out of the Assembly and out of government, appeared in court. He told the trial Judge that he had been requested to speak for the family. He asked the Judge to permit him to speak and to put questions to the witnesses. The Judge told him and the family that it would be safer for them to retain an attorney. She adjourned the case for a few days to give them a chance to find a new lawyer.

When the trial of the matter resumed, the family appeared again with Mr Hubert Hughes. They insisted that they wanted him to represent them at the trial. The Judge sought my view. I said I had no objection to his cross-examining my witnesses, but that the family would clearly be better off with an attorney especially as this was a complicated land dispute. The family persisted in requesting that Mr Hughes represent them in the matter.

The trial proceeded, and the result was that the judge declared that the family represented by Mr Hughes was not the owner of the land, but the opposing family was.

The losing family appealed to the Court of Appeal and subsequently to the Privy Council, in both of which they lost. Both they and my clients were by this time represented by other attorneys. The losing family subsequently had an attorney file one or more new cases attempting to re-litigate the issues. These cases were all dismissed. The family that succeeded are registered in the Land Registry with title absolute to the lands in dispute.

The family represented by Mr Hughes has never accepted the finality of the judgment of the court. They have continued to file case after case in the High Court. They have done everything in their power to obstruct the successful family from enjoying the fruits of their judgment. There have been violent demonstrations at Long Bay Village. Cutlasses have been waved in the air. Threats of death have been issued. Road construction and land development have been physically blocked. Tens of thousands of dollars in legal costs have been wasted.

Mr Hughes is now, as of early this year, back in office as Chief Minister of Anguilla. His Minister of Lands is from the West End and Long Bay area. The Minister has reportedly admitted in a news broadcast that he is “an interested party”.

I now hear from my correspondent that the Registrar of Lands of Anguilla has recently been the object of abuse by both the losing family and the Hon Chief Minister. The Chief Minister is said to have been on the radio yesterday chastising the Registrar of Lands for her conduct in relation to the performance of her duties in the Land Registry. Those duties may be related to the registered title to the land in question. It is not clear, but she would appear to have been trying to act in conformity with the Order of the Court. The losing family may have been attempting to coerce her to act contrary to the Order of the Court. She may have been refusing to do so. According to my informant, the Hon Chief Minister has now told the Registrar that she must recuse herself from further dealing with the matter as she is not competent.

I am also told that the Chief Minister has made a public statement, broadcast on radio yesterday and today, describing the original court decision as a “tapestry of justice”, and that the Supreme Court itself must be investigated.

As any one of my A-Level law students can tell you, there are three branches of government: the legislature which makes laws, the executive which makes and administers government policy, and the judiciary which adjudicates on disputes between citizen and the state and citizen and citizen. None of these branches is permitted to infringe on the jurisdiction of the other. This is called the doctrine of the separation of powers. In modern political thinking this doctrine is considered a cornerstone of democracy and essential for the protection of our civil rights.

The only branch of government which is regularly investigated is the judiciary. Every decision of a judge is subject to investigation. This is called an appeal. Even the appeal is subject to further investigation. In this instant case the judge's decision was investigated by the Court of Appeal. After investigation, the decision of the High Court in favour of the winning family was approved by the Court of Appeal. The decision of the Court of Appeal was further investigated by the Privy Council. The decision of the Court of Appeal was approved by the Privy Council. There have already been repeated investigations of this decision of the High Court. It is an impertinence to suggest that some other investigation is called for. The same cannot be said for most decisions of the executive branch of government.

Under our system of government public servants are supposed to be insulated from political pressure. This rule of non-political interference in the administration exists for the protection of the average citizen, who may otherwise be subject to victimisation. I cannot understand how a Minister of Government could put pressure on a Registrar of Lands in Anguilla to recuse herself from performing her administrative duties. Such a development would signify a low point in the government of our island. I sincerely hope that our Chief Minister would never act unconstitutionally to instruct some other public servant to intervene and to change the registered titles to these areas of land.

It would be worrying if the Governor and Deputy Governor were to be seen to permit a Minister of Government to harass a senior public servant in the performance of her duties. This is particularly so if she had been refusing to countenance the flouting of a longstanding and repeatedly upheld Order of the Court. Will they rise publicly and vociferously to the defence of the Registrar of Lands in this matter? We are not holding our breath, only bating it.

I can only hope that I have been misinformed. It would be bad enough if a Chief Minister were to be seen to be encouraging citizens to act in an illegal manner. It would be a vicious blow against the principle of the Separation of Powers if a Chief Minister were to be thought to be encouraging a flouting of an Order of a Court. It would be destructive of the Rule of Law for any Chief Minister or Prime Minister to be known to be disparaging the integrity of the Supreme Court itself. More damaging, we in Anguilla would be demonstrating unfitness for any extension of the powers of internal self-government, as we have been demanding.

Who would be obliged to pay the substantial damages and costs that may eventually be awarded against the government if this fiasco is not brought to an immediate end? We the people, of course.

A final question that we the members of the public might ask is, if these fears are justified, what, if anything, would the Anguilla Bar Association be prepared to do to defend the integrity and independence of our judicial branch of government, and to uphold the finality of an Order of the Court from an attack by a Minister of Government?

Related Posts:

Long Bay

Ministers

 

Smoke Screens

Is the diplomatic spat between the Governor and the Chief Minister all a smokescreen? And, if so, who is it designed to protect?

Just to recap. The Governor and the Chief Minister of Anguilla have been publishing press releases accusing each other of misbehaviour. The Governor went off first. He claimed on Thursday that the Chief Minister had instructed him to remove the portfolios of Health and Social Development from the Hon Edison Baird and transfer them to the Hon Jerome Roberts. He says that he refused to carry out the Chief Minister's instructions because in his view they amounted to a negation of democracy. He says he considers that would amount to two people, the Governor and Chief Minister, effectively overturning the will of the people as expressed just seven months previously. The Governor's view is that the people had elected four members of the AUM to form a Government, and three other members to form the Opposition. This is so obviously nonsense that we in Anguilla have all been casting about for another explanation.

The Chief Minister followed on Friday by issuing his own press release. He accused the Governor of not telling the truth. He said that the Governor had asked him to dismiss two of his Ministers, or to resign and call new elections. This is so obviously impossible for the Governor to have said that no right thinking person could believe it. There are only 5 members of the government in the Assembly and 4 of them are already ministers. There is no one else that the Chief Minister could have appointed to replace the dismissed Ministers. The likelihood is that in the midst of a quarrel the Governor had said to the Chief Minister that he could always resign, or words to that effect, and the Chief Minister had interpreted these words as a demand that he resign.

Someone pointed out that on Thursday and Friday the House of Assembly had passed a raft of new financial laws. These laws had not been previously gazetted, which is very unusual. They had not been previously shared with the members of the Opposition. No member of the public had been aware that these laws were about to be passed. They had been kept secret. One of these laws set up a new Department of Inland Revenue under a new Comptroller of Inland Revenue with drastic, even draconian, powers to penalise anyone who did not pay his taxes. The suspicion was raised that this spat with the Governor was designed to throw a smoke screen over the hurried passage of the Acts in the hope the public would be distracted.

Another person pointed out that JB Turbidy had in the previous few days been circulating a series of letters and emails. These emails accused the Chief Minister's administration of having agreed to the Starwood purchase of Viceroy on terms that were much to the disadvantage of Anguilla's revenue. This correspondence appeared in the Thursday issue of The Anguillian Newspaper. You can read it for yourself. Included in these emails were tables and graphs. They demonstrated how much more revenue Anguilla would have got from a sale to Mr Turbidy's group of investors as compared to the sale to Starwood. Mr Turbidy claimed that the Chief Minister had invited him to put in his bid, but had then refused to consider his application. He questioned the motives of those in the administration with whom he had been dealing. The suspicion was that the spat with the Governor was designed to distract the public from reading this correspondence and coming to a negative conclusion.

A more far-fetched explanation for the spat was that it was an FCO conspiracy. According to this theory, the conspiracy had been designed to sabotage the warm relationship that had been growing between the Chief Minister and the Minister for the Overseas Territories, Mr Henry Bellingham. They had met repeatedly both in private and in public on the Tuesday and the Wednesday before Mr Bellingham left to attend the General Assembly of the United Nations. The suggestion was that the FCO repressives and their legal advisers were worried. The more open minded Minister might be getting too friendly with the natives. It was necessary to set off a hand grenade to bring any more fraternising to an end.

A final and contradictory theory is that the spat was designed to throw a smoke screen over the rumoured censureship that the Social Security Board and the Ministers had come into from Minister Bellingham for the alleged misuse of Social Security funds. You will recall that the local administration had been borrowing monies from the trust funds of the Social Security Board to pay civil service salaries. This borrowing had been in breach of the agreed borrowing guidelines. The suggestion is that the spat served to block anyone from asking the obvious question: what was the reason for Mr Bellingham's surprise visit to Anguilla?

Who knows what the truth is?

Governor's Press Release

The Governor's press release says that the Chief Minister instructed him to remove the portfolios of Health and Social Development from the Hon Edison Baird and transfer them to the Hon Jerome Roberts. He says that he refused to carry out the Chief Minister's instructions because in his view they amounted to a negation of democracy. He says he considers that would amount to two people, the Governor and Chief Minister, effectively overturning the will of the people as expressed just seven months previously. The Governor's view is that the people had elected four members of the AUM to form a Government, and three other members to form the Opposition.

I have to admit that I have difficulty understanding this. My understanding of the Constitution is that the Chief Minister can tell the Governor which elected member of the House should be a Minister, and which one should not. No other Minister, nor the public, has any say in who is to be appointed a Minister. The people do not elect either a government or an opposition. The people elect only their representatives. Every representative is free either to join the government or to join the opposition. He is also free to change his mind and to cross the floor of the House.

The Governor is normally obliged to appoint as Minister whomsoever the Chief Minister tells him to appoint. The Governor has no say in who is or is not to be appointed a Minister.

Contrary to what the Governor wrote, it is not a negation of democracy for the Chief Minister to tell the Governor to appoint a coalition member of the government to be a Minister. If it were so, then the coalition Conservative Lib/Lab government in Britain must similarly be a negation of democracy, which is not correct.

If the Governor's recollection of what the Chief Minister told him is accurate, then what was improper about it was for the Chief Minister to have instructed the Governor to appoint a fifth minister. The Constitution is clear. The Governor, instructed by the Chief Minister, is only permitted to appoint four Ministers, plus a Parliamentary Secretary. There are already four Ministers and a Parliamentary Secretary appointed. It can be described as illegal under the Constitution for the Chief Minister to have requested him to appoint a fifth minister.

In any event, my understanding is that the Chief Minister did not instruct the Governor to appoint the Hon Jerome Roberts as a Minister. What the Chief Minister did was to instruct the Governor to transfer the portfolios in question to him, the Chief Minister. He seems to have indicated to the Governor that he would be asking the Hon Jerome Roberts to help him to manage those portfolios. This may have been irregular, but it would not have been in breach of the Constitution.

I cannot see anything in the law to fault the Chief Minister.

I don't understand the Governor's reaction.

British Minister's Visit

Henry Bellingham visits. The word I am hearing is that the British Minister stopped off in Turks and Caicos Islands and Anguilla for specific reasons.

        We know why he visited TCI. It has been published. The elections set for July 2011 will be delayed to allow time for anti-corruption and good-government reforms to take effect in the islands. You can read about it by clicking here: http://tcijournal.com/index.php?idsub=3249&id=8

        No reason for his visit to Anguilla has yet been suggested by any British or Anguillian official. However, I am informed that one of the first meetings that Mr Bellingham had was with the Social Security Board and the Executive Council.

        We know that since the election in February of this year the Government of Anguilla has borrowed some $60 million from the Board to pay civil service salaries. We know that was contrary to the “borrowing guidelines” that are by agreement binding on the Anguilla Government.

        We can expect that the FCO is not happy at this breach of the Guidelines.

        Could this be the reason for Mr Bellingham's visit to Anguilla?

TCI 5

We continue to look at Kate Sullivan's initial recommendations for Changes to Constitutional and Electoral Arrangements in the Turks and Caicos Islands.  You can download and read them by clicking on the link above.  I continue at paragraph thirteen of the paper I originally sent to the Editors of the TCI Journal:

[13]      Recommendation 9 would have the Constitution provide that the Governor may act contrary to the advice of Cabinet in an area of ministerial responsibility if to act in accordance with the Cabinet's advice would be contrary to the Statement of Governance Principles.  At first blush this may seem acceptable on the basis that the ministers have negotiated the Principles, and should not be permitted to act in breach of their contract to abide by them. 

The objection to the Recommendation is that it is an anti-democratic provision.  It does nothing to promote and develop good governance in the Territory.  Besides, there is no reason to suppose that a Governor will be seized of a greater sense of good governance than anyone else, as we have seen recently in Anguilla with the appointment by the Governor of the Commissioner of Police for Anguilla to be one of the two Magistrates for Anguilla on the day after the Commissioner surrendered his long-time previous appointment. 

It is to be remembered that we are talking about the Governor rejecting the advice of a Cabinet in which the Governor, his Deputy, and the Attorney-General have sat and participated in formulating.  If, in the presence of these worthy individuals, the Cabinet comes to a decision that some action is needed in the interests of the country, it is simply not acceptable for the Governor to be empowered unilaterally to act contrary to the advice. 

There are other preferable mechanisms that will introduce transparency and good governance into Cabinet decision-making than by making the democratic institution of the Cabinet subservient to the non-democratic one of the office of the Governor. 

Opening up uncontroversial Cabinet discussions to the press and public is one such mechanism. 

Making it mandatory for there to be a press conference immediately after Cabinet meetings, at which the press was not present, to brief the press on major decisions is another. 

Removing secrecy from Cabinet decisions is the best guarantee there is for ventilating and cleaning up those Cabinet processes that do not require secrecy.

To be continued …

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Magistrate

Magistracy

Governors

The Governor

TCI 4

We continue to look at Kate Sullivan's initial recommendations for Changes to Constitutional and Electoral Arrangements in the Turks and Caicos Islands.  You can download and read them by clicking on the link above.  I continue at paragraph [12] of the paper I originally sent to the Editors of the TCI Journal:

[12]      Recommendation 8 was like a breath of fresh air.  It provides for local supervision of the political directorate, and is entirely commendable.  She is proposing that a minister can be removed from the ministry if the Integrity Commission finds that he or she has breached the Code of Conduct for persons in public life or that the minister has failed to comply with the registration of interests requirements on two separate occasions. 

This is exactly the sort of development that we should be looking for if we are to see local institutions taking control of good governance issues.

To be continued …

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Integrity Law

Members Interests

Parliamentarians

Good Governance

Code of Conduct

Interests

The Interests Commissioner:  Following on from the previous post, the first institution we would look for in a country’s system of government, to give us some indication that integrity in public service is taken seriously, is a functioning and strictly enforced Integrity Act.  This is the law that in well-regulated countries requires public officers, that is, civil servants, politicians and directors of statutory boards, to publicly declare their assets and liabilities.  In Anguilla, as in most of the British Overseas Territories, there is no such law. 

We need to have laws and regulations, backed with sharp teeth, put in place.  In the absence of such a law, members of the public are entitled to suspect that politicians and civil servants retire much richer than when they went into the service.  And, we are entitled to believe that they have come by those riches in an unethical and criminal way.

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Integrity Law

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Good Governance   

Ministers

What is the function of a Minister in the Government of Anguilla?  The proper answer, I suppose, is that it is exactly the same as the function of a Minister in any other West Indian country.

And, what is that? you ask.  The answer is that the main function of a Minister is to oversee the operations of his Ministry, and to ensure that his public service officers carry out the policy decisions of the Executive Council/Cabinet.  The persons charged with making the government work are the public servants.  They carry out the day to day activities of the Ministry under the direction of the Permanent Secretary.  Subsidiary to this role is the important function of giving advice to the Minister on technical aspects of the work of the Ministry.  This permits the Minister to take the advice to Cabinet and get a sensible policy decision made.

What should clearly not be within the remit of a Minister is for him to go out on the road and personally direct operations related to his Ministry.  He should not hire people to carry out work.  He should not order materials and services to be paid for by his Ministry.  He is the policy maker, not the technician.  He is the director of the play, not the actor on the stage. 

And, how does a Minister learn his role? you ask.  The answer is that in bigger countries, such as the United Kingdom, there is a National School of Government.  They hold workshops and conferences for new Ministers.  They go through the Ministers’ Code of Ethics, pointing out each of the duties and responsibilities of Ministers of Government.   They train a politician how to be a responsible Minister.  They teach how corruption comes in many forms.  

It can take the shape of cronyism, when friends are appointed to Boards and given contracts.  That is a form of corruption.

Ministers need to be taught how to look out for conflicts of interest, and how to deal with them.  This is not something that comes naturally to many of us.

The British have long had an independent Appointments’ Board answerable only to Parliament.  When a Minister wants to appoint a new person to a Board, the proposed appointee must be vetted to ensure that person is properly qualified  and able to contribute to the work of the Board.  No one is given an appointment solely as a juicy plumb for political support.

They do not let a Minister go about ordering replacement parts for fire engines. 

They do not tolerate a Minister going down onto a project and participating in an industrial dispute.

They would not contemplate a Cabinet meeting discussing the overturning of a Public Service Board’s decision in carrying out its duties.

But, those things happen every day in Anguilla.  They always have.  We consider it normal.

Isn't it about time the Governor directed the Public Administration Department to come up with a course specifically for new Ministers designed to explain and teach best practices for Ministers?

Related Posts:

22 July 2008

MOAs

Not that I am a constitutional expert. Far from it. When I served as a judge, many of my judgements were reversed on appeal.  So, take this my opinion with the grain of salt it undoubtedly deserves.

In my opinion, when the government of Anguilla negotiates a Memorandum of Understanding or a Memorandum of Agreement [they both mean the same thing] with a developer, which agreement requires a change of the law, this agreement is not binding until the House of Assembly changes the law.  The agreement does not bind future governments.  It certainly does not bind the House of Assembly.  No Executive Council represents the House of Assembly or can speak on its behalf.  The House of Assembly is the law making body of the country.  The House of Assembly is free to completely ignore or to repudiate any agreement entered into by the government of the day.  It is the duty of the government to present any agreement they have made and which is subject to approval of the House of Assembly to the House to give it the validity of law.  If government fails to present the agreement to the House for approval, the agreement is worthless.  When the law says that only the House of Assembly can agree to something, any agreement by the government is subject to agreement by the House of Assembly. 

The Customs Act is such a law.  No exemption from customs duty under the Customs Act has effect, except it is passed by the House of Assembly.  Only the House can ratify an exemption from customs duty.  One of our major criticisms of the last government was that they made agreements for exemption from Customs Duty that had not been approved by the House of Assembly.  Executive Council has no authority to approve exemption from customs duty, unless they get it approved by the House of Assembly.  At most, Executive Council can agree to move a Resolution in the House of Assembly to exempt a developer from customs duty.

Our new government is subject to any decision made by the House of Assembly.  If the present House should repudiate any previous government’s MOU with Cap Juluca or with Flag Luxury Resorts, or the with Viceroy, which may have been approved by the last Executive Council, but not approve by the previous House of Assembly, then these MOUs or MOAs are worth nothing. 

If the present House of Assembly votes to repudiate any Memorandum or Agreement or any Memorandum of Understanding, not approved previously by the House of Assembly, then they are dust. 

So sayeth the soothsayer, Don.

Clean sweep

Is there any risk in voting in a brand new administration for Anguilla in 2010, none of whom has ever served in government before?  The answer is, of course not.  When the Torries win power in England in 2010, I doubt that one of the new Ministers will ever have served before.  Every one of them will be first timers, and they will serve efficiently and well. If they follow the rules of the Westminster System.

Under our system of government, Ministers should rely on their Permanent Secretaries and their competent, trained, permanent staff to do the actual work of each Department.  Ministers are not expected to do the detailed work of any Department or Ministry.  They are not supposed to get involved in the details of administration.  Ministers are only expected to lay down policy, and to supervise how the administration carries out their policy decisions.

The mistake we made in the past was perversely to permit Ministers to interfere in the details of administration.  Ministers made planning decisions for individual projects, instead of setting down a policy and leaving it to the administration to carry out the policy.  The Chief Minister decided who should get a work permit instead of an expert committee carrying out government policy.  The result was that his friends got work permits, and the rest sucked salt.   The Chief Minister, by abusing his work permit powers, decided which thieving employee could be fired by a hotel or restaurant, not the mediation and judicial system set up by the labour law. There are a dozen other examples of this type of mismanagement that any one of us could cite.  It has gone on for some 15 years.

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who should have known better, permitted us to mis-govern ourselves in this way.  Their School of Government was ready and willing to come in and give training in the role and responsibilities of Ministers and the administration.  Instead, our politicos were permitted to create their own half-cocked system that we now have.  That is why I say that a great deal of the responsibility for the lack of any principled government in Anguilla over the past 15 years lies on the Governors' heads.

If the system is allowed to work correctly, the way it was intended to, there is in my view absolutely no risk in having a clean sweep in government this year.

Ministers

What Does It All Mean for Anguilla?  It looks as if we have a new British Minister for the Overseas Territories.  Chris Bryant has announced on Twitter even before Downing Street put out the news that he has been promoted from being junior Foreign Office minister to be the new Europe Minister.  He replaces Lady Glenys Kinnock who is swapping places with him.  Lady Kinnock now takes on responsibility for Africa, South America, Australasia and the Pacific, Consular policy, the Olympics, Protocol, Human Resources and Diversity, as well as Central America and the Caribbean.  

Lady Glenys Kinnock and Chris Bryant

Africa now has two ministers.  Latin America and the Caribbean have one.  What sort of priority does that indicate?  Or, am I missing something?

Bryant has been very hand-on with regard to the three Overseas Territories that are deeply in debt, Turks and Caicos Islands, Cayman Islands, and Anguilla.  At least he sits in the House of Commons where the real power resides.  Now, we shall be responsible to a member of the House of Lords who are all either nominated or hereditary . 

Besides, with all the other responsibilities, where will she find the time to attend to Anguilla? 

Let us hope she has some very efficient permanent secretaries.

Borrowing

The Ministers propose to take a motion to authorize additional borrowing to the House of Assembly, regardless of the British Government’s disapproval. We have looked previously at the British Government’s refusal to permit the United Front government to increase Anguilla’s borrowing in the absence of any hope or plan to repay the debt. Now, the Minister says he is going to take a proposal to the House to authorize some $40 million, whether the British government sanctions it or not.

Can he do that?

Section 55 of the Anguilla Constitution 1982 sets out the limitations to the powers of the Anguilla House of Assembly. It states that “Except on the recommendation of the Governor” the Assembly shall not proceed upon any Bill, or any motion, or any petition, which in the opinion of the person presiding makes provision for increasing any charge on the revenues or other funds of Anguilla. The person presiding is the Hon David Carty, the Speaker of the House. He has long served as chairman or other high party official of the ruling United Front and its predecessor ANA party.

Once the Governor informs the Speaker that he objects to the motion or resolution or proposal to increase Anguilla’s borrowing, it would be the constitutional duty of the Speaker to prevent the government ministers from debating the matter.

The first big question then, is whether the Governor will make any objection known to the Speaker in advance?

The next big question is, will the Speaker permit the Ministers to introduce such a motion in the face of its evident illegality?

In my view, any lender proceeding to advance funds to government in the face of the illegality of the borrowing will be at risk of a court ruling that the Assembly had no power to authorise the borrowing. A court would be likely to rule that the borrowing was illegal and was not an obligation binding on any future government. The lender would have to look elsewhere to recover their funds.

In the event of a law suit brought against them, the members of the House who acted illegally would be at risk of having their personal property and possessions seized in repayment of the illegal debt that they incurred.

If the Governor does not inform the Speaker that he has any objection then, in my view, the Speaker will be entitled to assume that the Ministers would not be bringing the motion unless they had the Governor’s permission, as required by section 55.

Ripped off

Were Osborne and Victor ripped off in London? A Chinese website seems to think so. China Travel Industry News is the ChinaContact Blog that claims to collect and expertly analyse all the news about China’s tourism sector. Those who read and listen to the local media will recall that at last week’s press conference the Chief Minister and the Minister of Finance reported on their activities during the previous week in London. They had gone there ostensibly to negotiate an increase in the Anguilla government’s borrowing powers. Britain holds a tight leash on the power of overseas territories’ governments to engage in borrowing that might come back to be a burden on the British Treasury Department.

While in London, the government delegation engaged in a number of unrelated, spur-of-the-moment activities. One of these adventures was to sign a contract with the Chinese Business Network. This is a London-based translation service. According to the Anguilla Minister of Finance, for a “very minimum fee of ₤5,500 Anguilla will be registered on their network. They will translate Anguilla’s promotion on their website and maintain it over a period . . .”. So Victor is reported as telling the Anguilla press.

What the China Travel Industry News Blog hints is that Anguilla was overcharged. A competitive pricing for the service contracted would have been more in the region of ₤1,500. We did not need the Blog to tell us that our government does not have a clue about how to market us. We did not need to have it rubbed in our face that we often act in a rash way without investigating the market properly. But, that is exactly what they imply about our leaders’ wild initiative:

For comparison, we charge our clients for building a Chinese version site and hosting it in China for a year around £500 + £200 for the hosting and registration of own domain name. Translation is an extra few hundred but the whole thing does not go over £1,500.

The point I am illustrating is that so many countries that are new destinations for the Chinese have no clue about how to market themselves and they often act in a rash way without investigating the market properly and seeing if their expectations are realistic.

What we at ChinaContact are hoping to do is raise the level of education and awareness about the Chinese market in an honest and transparent way. It is easy to lose control of your marketing if you don’t understand the market for yourself.

If only our boys had sought and taken a little advice first while they were in London!

Why do we have to be so cowboy about everything?

School Violence

Minister Evans MacNeil Rogers is to be congratulated. This Blog is not in the business of publishing “feel-good” articles about anyone. Especially not about a Minister of Government noted mainly for his overweening vanity and his noticeable lack of competence. That, at any rate, is how our Minister of Education usually appears to me in relation to his departments of health and education.

But, the publication of the 2009 Report from the Task Force on School Violence in last week's 27 March 2009 issue of The Anguillian Newspaper was different from what I have come to expect from him. Seldom before has a Government Minister, far less the Minister of Education, released or authorised the release of such a sensitive Report to the public. And, to have done it a mere matter of days after the Report was presented to his Government! I am stunned. Is there any hope that this radically new venture into openness, transparency and good governance can continue into the future? Dare we even hope that the recommendations will be accepted and put into effect without undue delay? We shall ignore the rhetoric and look at the actions that will be taken in the coming months before we answer that question.

The Report is to be found in full spread over three pages in the issue of The Anguillian Newspaper of 27 March 2009. It makes for fascinating reading. You have to hope that all Anguillian parents and adults will read it. It is very sobering in both its findings and its recommendations.

Unfortunately, I cannot give you a link to the copy of the Report in the newspaper. I have searched the various sections, but cannot find it. It is not in the Front Page, News, or Local News sections. I did find a short article by Task Force chairperson, Peter Wolinsky. A short article is not as good as the actual Report, which is to be found in full in the paper version of the Anguillian.

I had hopes that I would find and link you to a copy of the Report on the government website. Hopes dashed! Not even a mention of it, though I gave the IT Department a full week to put a copy up on the site.

We can only hope that this ground-breaking Report will not receive the same treatment that the Minister gave to the 2005 Report of the School Violence Committee: relegation to the bottom drawer of the Ministry's collective filing cabinet.

If I get the chance, I would like to discuss some of the recommendations with you in future issues of this blog.