Releases

 The battle of the press releases?  The controversy highlighted in my post of yesterday continues in the press and on the airwaves.  The Minister of Finance of Anguilla was on Radio Anguilla at 9:00 pm and again at 10:00 pm last night attempting to explain away his embarrassment.  What appears to be indisputable is that the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank has lent the Government of Anguilla the princely sum of EC$12 million.  That should be just sufficient to restore the recent cuts made to public servants salaries, and to pay a double salary in time for Christmas.  The doubt lies in the circumstances in which the loan was made. 

According to the GoA press release, the government of Anguilla has never approached the government of Dominica for a loan or gift at any time.  That blanket denial would include a refutation that the GoA ever asked the GoD to extend some of its credit with the ECCB to Anguilla.  Our position is that the PM of Dominica has made an unfortunate claim.  Chief Minister Osbourne Fleming has contacted the Governor of the Central Bank, Sir Dwight Venner, and requested that he ask PM Skerrit to retract his statement.  Here is the Anguilla press release in full

Dominica has issued a press release attempting to clear up any misunderstanding over what PM Skerrit said.  It has explained that Dominica has not borrowed any funds from the ECCB for the past 5 years.  Dominica therefore has a credit with the ECCB to the tune of EC$89 million.  Anguilla, by contrast, had utilized all of its credit with the ECCB and could not borrow any more.  Dominica, therefore, last week gave Anguilla $12 million worth of Dominica’s credit.  The Dominica Minister of Finance, presumable at the request of the Anguilla Minister of Finance, had to give his consent in writing to this transaction.  So, the PM was not incorrect in stating that Dominica had helped its sister island of Anguilla.  He was merely speaking off the cuff, and may have used the wrong technical jargon.

Here is part of the Dominica press release:

Now, it will be obvious to a child that these two press releases cannot both be correct.  Either Anguilla went cap in hand to Dominica to extend some of its credit to Anguilla, or that is a complete falsehood. 

It will be interesting to see who has to apologise to whom.