Identity Cards

Constitutional Discussions 24: Identity Cards. It is presently a matter of uncertainty who of all the residents of Anguilla are entitled to Anguillian status. This status determines who can vote and who can purchase land freely and without any restriction. You cannot be deported or declared a prohibited immigrant if you are an Anguillian. At present, one has to produce a Belonger certificate issued by the Belonger Commission. Or, you may have a passport showing your Belonger stamp in it. Or, you might have with you your a birth certificate showing your birth in Anguilla to apparently Anguillian parents. Better still, you may have gone to school with the young Immigration Officer who is checking you in at the Arrivals at the airport. It helps if she knew your parents. The result is that you can prove you are an Anguillian in a variety of ways. All of this was entirely unsatisfactory to a majority of those persons who made representations on the subject to the members of the Constitutional and Electoral Reform Commission during the 2006 public discussions.

One representation that found favour was the requirement that all Anguillians carry an identity card. This would provide one standard mechanism for all of us to prove our Anguillian status when lawfully required to do so. Several concerned citizens pointed out that, with the recommendations for widening the definition of who is to be considered an Anguillian, there will in the future be many qualified persons who are not known in the community. At present, with its small village-like community structure, Anguillians generally all know who is who. In the coming years, the island’s population is expected to grow dramatically. It will become increasingly a matter of concern for the authorities to know immediately who is and who is not an Anguillian. Such a provision will go a long way to avoiding doubts. This was the recommendation of the Commission at paragraph 178 of its August 2008 Report.

It is a matter for regret that members of the House of Assembly meeting in caucus at the Limestone Bay Café in March did not agree with this recommendation. They were persuaded that it would be an excessive invasion of privacy. It was precisely because the members of the Commission recognised the intrusion into privacy that such a recommendation entailed that they thought it necessary to include the measure as a Constitutional provision. It is a matter for the law which will have to be enacted by the Assembly to give effect to the bare bones of the Constitutional provision to flesh out the protections for the public. It is difficult to see what the members of the Assembly want to put in place of an identity card. Or, do they not realise what a problem of identification the authorities are going to have in Anguilla in just a few years time?

This post brings to an end the list of disagreements that the members of the House of Assembly had with the recommendations of the Constitutional and Electoral Reform Commission. Subsequently, in July, the Chief Minister’s negotiating team met at Paradise Cove. They came up with some new ideas for discussion with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office team. Those discussions have now been indefinitely postponed. They will occur sometime in the next year or two. It does not look as if anyone in Government is going to tell the public what these ideas were. It will fall to me to do so, if I can find my notes.

As I write this, I am buried in the Public Records Office at Kew in London. I am researching Anguilla’s old colonial documents. I shall depend on you to let me have ideas for blogging for the next few weeks. As soon as I am back home, I shall look for my notes and let you know what I think.

Anguillian Status

Constitutional Discussions 23: Great-grandchildren of Anguillians. The question who is to be considered an Anguillian was the subject of much debate and disagreement during the 2006 public consultations of the Anguilla Constitutional and Electoral Reform Commission. The Commission eventually came up with a compromise recommendation that is contained at paragraph 174 of its August 2006 Report. I am not going to repeat it for you. It is long and complicated. It needs to be read in full to get its entire meaning. The members of the House of Assembly meeting in caucus at the Limestone Bay Café to consider the recommendations were generally in support of the changes recommended. There was just one small disagreement. It had to do with the great-grandchildren of Anguillians.

The Commission had recommended that children and grandchildren of Anguillians should automatically be Anguillians. It is not so now. Grandchildren of Anguillians are not legally Anguillian belongers. The Commission went further than grandchildren. They found that Anguillians in the main wanted their great-grandchildren to be included in the category of Anguillians. There was only one condition. It should not be automatic. The grant of Anguillian status to great-grandchildren should be tied to a proven connection with Anguilla. It would depend on proof of continuous residence in Anguilla for a period of five years prior to the application for a grant of a certificate of Anguillian status. This residence qualification would ensure that the many thousands of descendents of Anguillians who have long ago given up any connection with the island will not automatically be entitled. It is only those who reside on the island who would be so entitled.

Members of the House of Assembly were reluctant to go with this recommendation. They preferred the minority view. They would not include great-grandchildren, no matter how long they had lived on the island.

Quite what they were concerned about is still not clear to me!

Crown Lands

Constitutional Discussions 22: Disposal of Crown Lands. Opportunities for official corruption by local administrators in a colonial setting are limited. The External Auditor reports to the Governor and the House of Assembly on the spending of public funds. He ensures that it is difficult, if not impossible, for senior government figures to dip their fingers into the public purse and remain undiscovered. There is thus an external check on waste of public monies. Not so in the case of public lands. There are no checks and balances when it comes to wheeling and dealing in public lands. This lack has long been a cause of public ferment and distrust in Anguilla. It is a subject on which several representations were forthcoming to the Constitutional and Electoral Reform Commission during the public discussions leading up to its August 2006 Report.

Section 75 of the Anguilla Constitution presently provides that the Governor is the person who signs legal instruments dealing with Crown land. He is obliged to do so on the advice of the Executive Council, or cabinet. This two-step strategy ensures some degree of control. Most Anguillians believe that is not sufficient. It does not give the Anguillian public the full assurance that it demands. A Governor will not be sufficiently aware of local affairs to be able to question a dealing that is inadvisable but that is being pressed on him by Cabinet. One suggestion for reform found wide acceptance. It was to require all dealings in Crown lands to be the subject of debate in the House of Assembly. This strategy would act as an additional control on wasteful dealing in public land. The fear of public exposure would limit the temptation to deal improperly in public lands. The Commission recommended at paragraph 162 of its Report that section 75 of the Constitution should be amended to provide that all future dealings in public lands in excess of one acre be required to be approved by a Resolution of the Assembly.

It is a matter for regret that both the supporters of Government and of the Opposition meeting in caucus at Limestone Bay Café disagreed with the recommendation of the Commission. They all preferred that the present provision remain as it is.

We are left to wonder why!

Social Insecurity

At Last! The 2003 Accounts.

I recently received a message that the long overdue Social Security Annual Report for the year 2003 has been published. I had a look at the website. The letter of transmittal and other reports are undated. We have to assume that the Minister received the Report when it was published, in August 2007. I would have thought this was a tad in arrears for a Social Security Board?

My correspondent was not impressed. He sent me a query he had received recently. I shall publish his response at a later date. This is what the query he received said:

We finally get to see the Social Security Annual Report for 2003. As expected, it is not very revealing. How much does Tim earn? You tell me:

6. ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENDITURE	2003 $$	2002 $$
Salaries & Allowances of Admin staff	1,577,200	1,408,037
Allowances & Expenses of the Board	139,257	140,801
Other Expenses of Administration	1,402,705	1,654,122
Other Expenses	89,083	76,110
Total	3,208,245	3,279,070

This trough has room for countless snouts.

They have over $14 million in a Smith Barney account. In 2002 it lost over $3.5 million. Madre de Dios!

They own an unstated number of vehicles, having a total depreciated value of $69,000+ at the beginning of 2003. I don't know what they cost, or how many of them are devoted to Tim's "official" use.

They spend, very roughly, $4 million a year to give out $3 million in benefits. This does not include the Development Fund.

The Development Fund gave a $100,000 grant to the Jazz Festival.

What else do you see here that might interest Don? He has a somewhat limited fascination for financial statements.

Is this what they call a faith based initiative?

Yours faithfully etc,

I know that Director Tim Hodge honestly believes that Social Security is transparent and likety-splick clean. However, the Social Security fund is one of the largest honey pots of potential for misuse on the island. There must be few funds, other than the government’s total income housed in the Consolidated Fund and the entire asset base of one of our major banks, that are larger than the public monies held in trust by the Social Security Board. To this end, the Board must expect that its accounts will be subject to the most stringent examination and analysis. Tim is an old friend of mine. But, old friendships must not be permitted to stand in the way of rigorous examination of the accountability of the Board for the funds upon which future generations of employees must depend. The Social Security Board has no shareholders meeting to face questions. It is all the more incumbent on them to provide us with the fullest details of where our money is invested and what is being done with it.

I have to agree with my correspondent that the explanation of administrative costs published on Social Security's website, no matter how acceptable it is to the accounting profession, should not be acceptable to us here in Anguilla. Later, my correspondent's response to the above letter.

Quarantine

Oriental Fish Imports. A correspondent sent me a Belize article from Caribbean Net News. I read it with interest. I was amazed. I had no idea that any public health authority in the West Indies was so aware of the environmental issue. It was staggering, for someone residing in Anguilla to read about such principled determination.

Their Quarantine and Inspection Service has recently confiscated and destroyed 4,492 pounds of fish originating from Asia. The reason? The fish were inspected! It was noticed that they were not from the USA as stated on the permits presented for importation, but from Asian countries such as China, India and Vietnam. The problem? The fish represented a high risk for the introduction of diseases to the aquaculture sector. These countries are not transparent in their reporting of fish diseases.

It gets better. I learned that the Belize Agricultural Health Authority in 2006 issued 6,257 animal health and food safety permits. All application are screened by a Veterinary and/or Food Safety Officer. A risk analysis is performed for those commodities that represent a high risk due to Belize’s natural conditions. In 2006, six international site visits were conducted to verify inspection, approval and certification procedures. Four documented risk analyses were performed for those commodities that represent a high risk. These included milk powder, duck meat, packaged bees, and pork.

In the same year, 2006, the Quarantine and Inspection Services confiscated over 106,500 pounds of high-risk commodities. They refused entry into Belize of a total of 90,000 pounds of commodities due to high pest infestation.

Can any of us in Anguilla imagine anything like that happening in our Public Health or Fisheries Authorities? I doubt it. If I am wrong, please let me know. And, what was much more extraordinary, the information was published! It was information that the press and public could access. It was not kept from the public. That is quite extraordinary for us in Anguilla. As my correspondent writes,

How mucha high risk or pest-infested commodities were confiscated in Anguilla in 2006? If anything has ever been confiscated here in living memory, it's a State Secret. But we have the Cuban tree frog, the killer tick, the pink mealy bug and a zillion African snails.

Of course, Belize has marine parks. She has fish farms. She has one of the greatest barrier reefs outside of Australia to protect. Her officials have more reason to be interested in the marine environment than our officials. We in Anguilla have nothing worth protecting. Or, so it would seem!!

Assembly

Order in the House of Assembly. A correspondent has recently sent me a post from the St Helena Herald. He has added his comments. I wonder if his comments are relevant to the conduct of business in the Anguilla House of Assembly at this time. There have been times, no doubt, when his comments may accurately describe what happened in Anguilla. But, does it happen still? Make up your own minds. This, in red, is the clipping he sent me, with his comments in green below:

St. Helena Herald
17 August 2007
Honourable Speaker calls Councillors to Order

During formal Legislative Council Meetings, the Honourable Speaker of the St Helena Legislative Council has found it necessary on occasion to remind Honourable Members of the rules of procedure when rising on points of order or information. The current Speaker, The Honourable Eric George MBE found it necessary to do this at the 3^rd Meeting of the 2nd Session of the Legislative Council also.

Someone asked me to explain what was actually happening in the Meeting at the time, which I did. Realising that there may be others who may be unaware of the rules of procedure in Legislative Council,the following information relevant to any member rising during a debate in Legislative Council, is offered for clarification.

The St Helena Legislative Council Guide to Procedure contains a section on Standing Orders made, with the approval of the Governor, in accordance with section 29 of the Constitution:

ORDER 22 – Responsibility for Order

1. The President shall be responsible for the observance of the rules of order in the Council and his decision on any point shall be final.

2. Whenever the President rises during a debate, any member then speaking or offering to speak shall sit down, and the Council is to be silent so that the President may be heard without interruption.

ORDER 23 – Points of order or information

1. Any member deviating from the provisions of these Standing Orders may be immediately called to order by the President or by any member rising to a point of order; a member rising to a appoint of order shall simply direct attention to the point he desires to bring to notice and submit it to the President for decision.

2. When the question of order has been stated, the member who raises it shall resume his seat and no other member, except with the leave of the President, shall rise until the President has decided the question, after which the member who was addressing the Council at the time the question was raised shall be entitled to proceed with his speech giving effect to the ruling from the Chair.

3. Any member may rise at any time to state any fact which is relevant to the matter under debate and of which he believes the member then speaking to be unaware; Provided that a member so rising shall confine himself to stating the fact in question, without argument or opinion; and Provided also that any member who appears to the President to be abusing the procedure provided by this Rule so as unreasonably to interfere with the freedom of speech of another member shall be liable to be dealt with under Order 25, Rule 2.

ORDER 25 – President’s powers to enforce order

2. If a member shows disregard for the authority of the Chair, or abuses the rules of the Council by wilfully and persistently obstructing its business or is grossly disorderly, the President may order that member to withdraw from the Council Chamber for such period as he may determine, and may direct such steps as are necessary to be taken to enforce his order.

Source:

St Helena Legislative Council Guide to Procedure, issued April 1989 by the Secretariat, following the introduction of the St Helena Constitution Order 1988.

I trust the above selected information about rules of procedure in Legislative Council is helpful.

Cyril Gunnell

This is different from Anguilla. In Anguilla, any member is free to interrupt whoever is trying to speak, so that he or she may correct the misinformation being presented. This is called a "Point of Order." Other members may then intercede. Whoever speaks the loudest has the floor. The Speaker yields his authority by banging his gavel repeatedly and making empty threats. When the meeting turns into something resembling a mass cat and dog fight, the radio broadcast is suddenly discontinued without explanation or apology.

In Anguilla, we call this "Setting a good example for our young people." We wonder why they have gone bad.

I have to admit that I do not have a copy of the Rules of Procedure of the House of Assembly of Anguilla with me in London at this time. I seriously doubt if our rule on points of order are as detailed as these. I also doubt that they provide such clear rules on how a Member is to make a “point of order”. I have never heard a Member in Anguilla make a “point of information”. And, I doubt that Speaker David Carty can be described as ineffective.

Does anyone know what the Rules of Procedure say?

Transparency Int

Transparency International. A reader sent me this article from the Guardian Newspaper. It gives us an insight into the sort of good work that Transparency International is doing all around the world:

Anti-corruption survey lists lawyers for first time
Lawyers have a new reputation in Kenya - as solicitors of bribes. The professionals have been listed for the first time ever in the annual Kenya Bribery Index, prepared by the local chapter of the Berlin-based Transparency International. Lawyers were ranked the ninth most corrupt group in Kenya in the report, which was published yesterday. The police remained the most corrupt institution in the country for the sixth year running, according to the survey which involved asking 2,400 respondents what institutions they had interacted with and for details of bribes paid.
Associated Press in Nairobi

The article inspired me to do a Google search for the Kenya Bribery Index. I recommend that you have a look at it. It gives an idea how long the Kenya Branch of Transparency International has been working to encourage their fellow citizens to clean up their act. Perhaps, some enterprising young persons could consider setting up a branch in Anguilla.

I was sorry to see how poorly the judiciary and police of Kenya do in the rankings for 2007. The police in Kenya have traditionally been the worst offenders when it comes to bribes. Lawyers enter the list for the first time. You can download the 2007 report here.

Now, I am well aware that thre is no evidence that we have corrupt police or lawyers in Anguilla. But, it would help to keep us on the straight and narrow if we did have a branch of TI here, wouldn’t it?