Miseducated

Comprehensive Education Review Team preparing report for Government. I learned quite by accident that there is a Comprehensive Education Review Team. They are examining the state of comprehensive education in Anguilla. They are interviewing people, and examining the facilities at the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School. They will prepare a report for government. I was grateful to the Team for giving me an opportunity recently to address them. I offered them my views on Anguilla’s secondary school education system. I told them exactly what I think. This, in summary, is what I said:

Based on my exposure to Anguilla’s sole high school, in my estimation fewer that 20% of this year’s Form VI graduates will enter the work force, or go on to an institution of tertiary education, able to either write, or to express themselves verbally, anywhere near a Form VI standard. The exceptions are all the children of professionals. I assume their parents put pressure on them to achieve and to excel in school. Those children who do not come from equally ambitious backgrounds are not being helped by the present school system. I had not realised that the Comprehensive Education System, as it works in Anguilla, is designed to ensure that only the children who are the beneficiaries of additional home schooling would reach an acceptable standard of basic education on graduation from the High School.

I am conscious that the secondary school system is not the only, or even the main, culprit in this failure shown towards the students of Anguilla. I understand that the children’s education problems start long before they reach the High School. It is unfair to expect the High School staff to overcome by themselves, and without resources, the obstacles placed in the way of the education of our young people. They are the result of wider social problems.

Parents, who were too busy to read to them when they were very young, are partly to blame.

The primary schools are graduating students who cannot read or write.

Most Anguillian school children are latch-key children. There is frequently no adult present when the students come home after class to encourage them to study and prepare. Too often, the only real family is the neighbourhood gang.

Drugs, alcohol and pornography on the internet are pervasive. These adversely impact young persons in Anguilla when they are left to their own devices.

The paucity of the facilities at the High School is noticeable. The school library serves as the Form VI students’ lounge. The books are in the mess you would expect. I have not asked, but it is unlikely that any student, other than a sixth former, would dare to enter the school library.

The public library is no substitute. It is a place for students to go to gossip and to play computer games. The different reading rooms in the library are not invigilated when there are students in them, as they ought to be. The public library of Anguilla is distinguished mainly by the absence of worthwhile literature and reference works. There has been no attempt to build up a permanent collection of regional and international classics. There has for years been a culture among the public library staff that if a book is old then it must be deemed soiled and fit only to be disposed of. Anguillian children are too precious to be made to handle a used book. Several of my students have told me that they have not borrowed a book from the public library to read for either pleasure or instruction in over ten years. Their explanation is that there are no books worth reading in the public library.

There is no invigilated study room in the school, as there ought to be, for students who have no class to sit quietly and study. The result is that there are groups of boys and girls hiding in corners of the schoolyard laughing and chatting at all hours of the day.

There is no supervision of the students in the school yard during breaks or at lunch time. I understand the Teachers’ Union is opposed to it. I have not asked Emma if it is true. This abandonment of the students encourages them to engage in bad behaviour. It reinforces their perception that there are no consequences for bad behaviour. Foul language on the school grounds is commonly overheard, among boys and girls. There is no one to report their misconduct.

Even if anyone did report unacceptable behaviour, there is in practice no penalty of any consequence. There is, eg, no invigilated room for misbehaving children to be made to stay back after school in punishment. Class control is not managed by rules or procedures, but by the force of the individual teacher’s character. Teachers do their work in terror of some abusive parent storming into the school and assaulting them.

Many of the teachers I meet are disillusioned and disgruntled. The teacher’s common room is a dump. I have never seen more than five or six teachers in it at lunch time or at any other time, except when the Principal holds briefing meetings. The explanation I have been given for its present dilapidated state is that it is old, about to be replaced, and not worth repainting.

In my humble opinion, there is no necessity for the education authorities to compound all the wider social faults and defects in Anguilla by providing an education system that seems designed to ensure that the present generation of Anguillian students will not be able to hold their own when they grow up and go out into the real world.

In my humble opinion, the comprehensive education system of Anguilla, as I have found it, is a major disappointment. Anguilla’s children are being cheated out of a decent secondary education. A majority of Anguillian students leave the ALHCS essentially uneducated. Radical reform is needed. I am not qualified to make recommendations on how to reform the system. I will leave that for others who are more qualified than I am.

I was pressed by the team at the end of the interview to find something positive to say about the system. I got the impression they wanted a balanced opinion from me. Sorry, I don’t do balanced opinions. I am only capable of delivering frank opinions. Let the mealy-mouthed equivocators produce the balanced opinions. Anguilla has more than its fair share of those types. There will be plenty of apologists to pick and choose from. In my mind, the situation is stark, and crystal clear.

Parents, schools, and students of the 1960s and 1970s had fewer resources than those of today. Yet, the students left the education system highly educated. They left both disciplined and highly motivated. Those were the Anguillians who built the Anguilla of today that we know. The principal of the school and her team face an impossible task in producing replacements who will be equally highly educated and motivated. The existing secondary school system has totally failed the majority of the present-day graduates. Most modern-day Anguillian High School graduates are not qualified to go on to college. They are not even fit to fill the position of junior clerk in any office. They are essentially illiterate and unemployable. Except for my students, of course.

Sorry if it sounds too harsh a judgment. I tried hard, but I could not find anything more positive to say.

Warnings

I receive my first ever warning from the police. There is a popular remedy or relief available to any person in Anguilla who has a complaint against someone else. You make a report at the police station of your concern, perhaps that a crime has been, or is about to be, committed. If you do not want the person prosecuted, you ask the police merely to visit the accused and warn him not to repeat his conduct. It is a simple-to-use procedure. The police love it. It requires no police investigation. It can be carried out quite quickly. It probably is a very useful process in preventing the commission of more serious crimes.

So, what was my alleged crime? The warning was to the effect that Lolita Richardson had made a formal complaint at the Police Station. She had complained that I had slandered her name on the Elkin Richardson radio show, “To the Point”. I was warned. I thanked the police officer who delivered the warning to me.

And, to think that I was under the impression that what I said on the radio programme was meant to preserve her name. This is my recollection of what happened.

On the Friday, Elkin had called me on the telephone. He had told me that he had obtained a copy of the proposed new constitution for Anguilla. I have previously written about how anxiously we in Anguilla were awaiting our first viewing of this document. See the links below.

Regular readers of this Blog will recall the sequence of events. In the period January to August 2006, the Constitutional and Electoral Reform Commission had worked with the Anguillian public on preparing recommendations for the reform of the Constitution of Anguilla. In August 2006, the Commission had published its Report. Subsequently, the Chief Minister had established a Chief Minister’s Committee. This had spent several months reviewing and discussing the Report. After much discussion, the Committee had come up with a number of amendments of its own. They had then decided that they would prefer to see in print what the finished product of what they had approved would look like. A written draft of the proposed new Constitution would make it easier to discuss the recommendations with the public. They would have something in their hands that they could refer to.

The Chief Minister had consequently given Lolita Richardson her instructions. She was to prepare a draft Constitution. It was intended for circulation to the public and for general discussion. She was to incorporate in the draft (a) the recommendations of the Commission, together with (b) such amendments as the Chief Minister’s Committee had approved. The main amendment that the Chief Minister’s Committee had come up with was that Anguilla should go for “full internal self-government”. Most of the other amendments were relatively minor.

Mrs Richardson had proceeded to prepare an initial draft constitution. This draft had been further reviewed by the Chief Minister’s Committee for several more months. No member of the public saw a copy of it during the several months it was under discussion. The Committee, we must assume, had made a number of further amendments to Mrs Richardson’s draft. Eventually, as we understood it, Mrs Richardson had incorporated the corrections. She had delivered a finished product to the Chief Minister. The Chief Minister had called a press conference. He had with much fanfare officially handed it over to the Attorney-General. The A-G’s instructions were to publish the draft to the public for discussion.

Since the hand-over some months ago, we have been waiting for the promised publication. To this day, you cannot obtain a copy of the draft that was handed to the A-G. It must be some sort of State secret. So, I was excited about the opportunity I was being offered to see it. Elkin asked me if I could study it and appear on his show on the following Monday and give my views on it. I was happy to agree. [This call-in radio programme on the radio station Kool FM takes place every Monday evening at 7:30 pm, approximately. There are often interesting speakers on the programme. You should tune in. The link above even permits live streaming to anywhere in the world].

I collected the document from Elkin. He told me he had got it from an official source. He had been assured that it was the final draft that the A-G was supposed to publish to the public. I read it as promised. I compared its contents paragraph by paragraph with the 2006 Report of the Constitutional and Electoral Reform Commission. On the following Monday evening, I turned up at the radio station. That Monday evening, I duly gave the listening public my impressions about the document. As I recall, they were, and are, principally these:

1. The draft was very disappointing in that it contained less than half of the recommendations made by the Commission and accepted by the Chief Minister’s Committee.

2. The draft was objectionable in that it included the exact opposite of some of the recommendations made by the Commission and approved by the Committee.

3. The draft could not be a final draft. It was filled with so many typing errors, grammatical mistakes, and contradictions, that it must be a very early, uncorrected draft. It could not be the finished draft. The document appeared to be really a very amateurish effort. I do not believe that Mrs Richardson would have permitted such a rough draft to be submitted to the A-G’s Chambers as a finished product. Another reason why the document I was shown could not be a finished product was that the initial draft had gone through month after month of discussions among the Chief Minister’s Committee. This Committee had included some of the most powerful and some of the most highly educated government officers in Anguilla. They would have noticed the obvious typing errors, and corrected them before the document was handed over to the A-G. All this I explained on the radio programme.

Now, tell me what was so objectionable in what I said!

Elkin tells me that he received a similar warning from the police as the one I got. His theory for this bizarre incident is that Mrs Richardson could not have heard the radio show herself. She must have missed listening to it, and relied on a skewed account of it given to her by some mischief-maker.

I accept that as a possibility. I forgive Mrs Richardson. But, she should know by now not to believe everything she is told in Anguilla.

Related Blogs:

New Constitution: 18 April 2009

Constitutions: 18 December 2008

Constitution: 2 December 2008

Shallowness: 7 June 2008

Big Chief: 29 May 2008

Checks & Balances: 28 May 2008

Garden Path: 26 May 2008

Open Mic: 24 May 2008

Ambulances

Does Anguilla have an effective ambulance service? Recently, National Bank of Anguilla and Caribbean Commercial Bank donated EC$80,000.00 to the Health Authority of Anguilla for the purchase of a new ambulance. This new ambulance was intended to replace the two old ones that frequently failed to start, or broke down during an emergency.

The need was obvious. As Dr Bonnie Richardson-Lake, PS Health Department, said at the cheque presenting ceremony,

“Everyone in Anguilla needs to feel that they have access to good quality care, and that in case of an emergency they would be well looked after, thus making them feel more secure.”

The cheque presenting ceremony

More recently, Cap Juluca Hotel handed over an even newer ambulance to the Health Authority. It cost US$85,000.00.

As CEO of the Health Authority, Darlene Baptiste, said at the handing over ceremony, she was grateful for the partnership between the hotel and the Authority,

“which provided an opportunity to provide optimum health-care services to the people of Anguilla.”

According to the newspaper report, Chairman of the HAA, Dr Franklin Lloyd, said,

“the provision of the ambulance was another demonstration of the Authority’s determination to continue to improve the quality and timeliness of health care. He called on the Emergency Medical Technicians to function at all times as dedicated professionals with efficiency, commitment and compassion, noting that although the ambulance was well equipped, it was for them to operate it at a high level to ensure quality service.”

The handing over ceremony

At the same handing over ceremony for the new Cap Juluca ambulance, the Director of Medical Services, the Rt Hon Dr Sir Kennedy Simmonds spoke. He said that,

“the state-of-the-art ambulance, coupled with the ongoing updating training of the Emergency Medical Technicians, would help the HAA to deliver more effective and efficient first emergency response service to the people of Anguilla.”

Cap Juluca's new ambulance

You would think, with all that new equipment, not to mention the high hopes and promises expressed at the two handing over ceremonies, Anguilla’s ambulance and emergency service would be one of the best in the West Indies.

Listen to Darren Augustus’ story. In the calypso world he is known as The Mighty Tornado. About two weeks ago, on 24 April, he ate lobster. It was meant to be his birthday celebration. It turns out he had developed an allergy to lobster. By the following day he had become violently ill. His limbs had swelled up. He could not walk. He was vomiting, and suffering from diarrhea. His head was spinning.

He did what you or I would have done. He telephoned the hospital for an ambulance to come and rush him to the hospital.

The response? “Sorry, we have no gasoline for any of the ambulances.”

Fortunately, his girlfriend could drive. She got him to the hospital, no thanks to any of the three ambulances then in the service of the HAA.

Read it, and weep for us. Clearly, Anguilla at present has no effective ambulance service. Regardless of the amounts of money donated and invested.

My recommendation is that whoever is in charge of that department ought to be fired, for cause, forthwith.

I only waiting to hear the calypso!

Measures

Weights & Measures. Why is there no government officer in Anguilla charged with checking annually the weights and measures used by merchants on this island? I know that the Weights and Measures Act says that there should be Inspectors of Weights and Measures who are supposed annually to go around and check on these matters. There is one, and sometimes several, in each other island of the West Indies. We must be the only one where the consumer is so blatantly exposed to short changing and overcharging.

I challenge anyone in government to show that any inspector has actually been appointed and trained to perform the statutory duties. The Act says that the inspector is an officer in the Accountant-General’s office. I emailed our Accountant-General and asked her if any had ever been appointed in Anguilla to her knowledge. As the Deputy-Governor is in charge of public service appointments, I asked him as well. Needless to say, neither has responded to my enquiry.

Take one of those little red one-gallon gasoline canisters sold at all the hardware stores in Anguilla. They are made in the USA, and I would expect they measure 1 US gallon. They state they can hold 1 gallon, 4 fluid ounces. One gallon would be up to the “safe” full mark. The extra four ounces, I expect, would be if you fill it up to overflowing.

One US gallon is 128 US fluid ounces. One Imperial gallon is 153.7 US fluid ounces. The gas stations of Anguilla are obliged by the Weights and Measures Act to sell gasoline by the Imperial gallon. If they are doing so, and if you fill one of those little made-in-the-USA red canisters, you should get considerably less, nearly 20% less, than one Imperial gallon in it.

One of my correspondents conducted a little experiment. He went to three of the seven gas stations on the island. He filled his canister, paid for it, and emptied the contents into his car. He went to the next gas station and repeated the process. Each time he filled up the canister he checked the amount of gasoline alleged to have been sold to him. It should have been approximately .8 to .9 of a gallon in each case. He made a note of how much gasoline the machine said he purchased. He tells me that he found that each of the three gasoline dispensers stated that he had bought more than one gallon. One stated that he had purchased as much as 1.4 gallons, another 1.2 gallons. Needless to say, that is what he was charged for. None of the three gas stations recorded or charged for the correct volume dispensed.

It is conceivable that some of the gas stations on Anguilla have begun to use the US gallon instead of the Imperial gallon. But, that is unlikely for two reasons. One, it is against the law. Two, these things are standardized. In any event, why would one gasoline dispenser state that he had purchased 1.4 gallons, while another stated 1.2 gallons?

The results are sufficient to indicate to me that there are no standard measurements enforced in the sale of gasoline in Anguilla. That is what the Inspector of Weights and Measures is supposed to be checking on for our protection.

In the case of the gas station falsely claiming payment for 1.4 gallons for filling the gas canister, in particular, the proprietor should be prosecuted and his licence taken away from him. But, we need to have a properly trained inspector appointed first.

With our complete indifference in Anguilla to the need to hold to proper standards, and our cow-boy attitude to the sale of goods and services generally, in my opinion the Anguillian consumer must be one of the most exploited in the West Indies.

Related links: Sale of goods

Integrity Law

Just passing a law does not achieve much. We need integrity legislation in Anguilla. No thinking person in Anguilla doubts that proposition. An Integrity in Public Life Act is the law that would, among other things, require members of the House of Assembly, members of Executive Council, and other senior public officers, to state on oath their assets and liabilities. They would have to make regular filings and declare gifts given to them while in office. There would be severe penalties if they lie or fail to make the declaration. The Anguilla Constitution 1982 has set up a Register of Interests. By itself, the Constitution does not achieve anything to ensure integrity in public office. There needs to be a law to give effect to the constitutional provision, to set out the details of the mechanism.

The official explanation of the advantage of such a law is that it forces public officers to declare their interests when they meet to discuss policy, make decisions, and pass laws. That is, it makes people think of conflicts of interest. That is polite mumbo jumbo. The real reason for the law is that the assets of the public officer in question becomes public knowledge. If he acquires sudden wealth while approving licences and permits, questions are likely to be asked. The risk of public exposure and even prosecution will give the conscience a boost. Such a law is an aid to the personal integrity impulse, so to say. It is like the Vitamin B12 injection doctors give to the elderly. It boosts our resistance and inoculates us against infection.

So, it should be no surprise that Anguillians were nearly unanimous in 2006 when the Constitutional and Electoral Reform Commission sought their views on the subject of the need for integrity legislation. Paragraph 135 of the final Report contained the recommendation of the Commission. There must be strengthened anti-corruption provisions in our proposed new Constitution. An appropriate law, including severe penalties for any evasiveness or falsehood, must be put in place without delay.

With any luck, we will get the new law in due course. When we do so, that will not be the end of the matter. There is the little matter of how the Act is drafted, and how it is amended in the House of Assembly. It can be watered down to meaninglessness. Turks and Caicos Islands has such an Act. It has been a complete waste of time. The politicians have ensured that it is no use at all. I was reading all about it in a recent article in Caribbean Net News. This is the gist of the TCI integrity legislation story:

2006 September – The Leader of the Opposition presents in the House of Assembly an anti-corruption Bill. It is based on legislation that had been effective in Trinidad. This Bill is never debated. It is killed in the House by the incumbent party.

2008 January – The FCO provides a draft Integrity in Office Bill to the A-G’s Chambers. He is told to prepare it for passage through the House of Assembly. The draft duly goes to Cabinet and then to the House. It will provide that officials must periodically declare their assets. They must declare gifts of $5,000.00 and up. The Commission will consist of five members. It is empowered to investigate and adjudicate complaints leveled against government office holders. The Commission will have the power to enforce sanctions against an offending official. He can be fined, assessed jail time, and even be forced to step down from office. There will be a judge from a Commonwealth country on the Commission to ensure independence and impartiality.

2008 May – In Committee Stage, members of the governing party make amendments. These are designed to water down the Bill. The fines and jail terms are reduced. The value of the gifts that have to be declared are raised to $10,000.00. The requirement for a Commonwealth judge is replaced by a one for a TCI judge. The TCI House of Assembly passes the Bill. The Governor assents to it. The Commission is never put in place. Apparently, no TCI judge willing to serve has ever been found.

2009 April – The Auld Commission comes out with its scathing interim report on corruption in TCI. An amendment to the law is proposed at a sitting of the House of Assembly. It would revert to a Commonwealth judge. It would return to the $5,000.00 standard. The former Ministers who have now resigned oppose the amendments. But, with the support of the Opposition, the amending Bill is passed.

The same thing could happen in Anguilla. Without vigilance, an ineffective piece of integrity legislation could be drawn like wool over our eyes. It is only if there is a genuine and heart-felt demand by the public for integrity legislation that the politicians will be reluctant to sabotage it.

Are we up to the challenge?

FCO-FAC

Is it appropriate for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to continue to be the Department through which Anguilla relates to the British Parliament and Government? I read a transcript of the Westminster Hall Debate of 23 April 2009 with interest. The topic of the debate was the recent report by the Foreign Affairs Committee into the governance of the Overseas Territories by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

If you would like to read a short account of the debate, you can find it here.

The debate was three hours long. If you have the time to view a video of the entire debate, it is available here

The full text is available on the on-line Hansard here.

There were several aspects of the debate worth examining and writing about. The one I want to focus on today was an observation made by Andrew Rosindell, the Conservative Shadow Minister for Home Affairs, and then to comment. He suggested that the FCO may not be the most appropriate British government department to have oversight of the British Overseas Territories.

This is what he had to say:

“This issue should not be under foreign affairs. They are not foreign; they are British. Why is it under foreign affairs? Why are British overseas territories — territories of Her Majesty the Queen — under the Foreign Office? They are neither foreign nor Commonwealth. They are not members of the Commonwealth in their own right. They are British overseas territories in the Commonwealth only via Britain, so they should not really be under the Foreign Office at all. They should be placed in the same Department, whichever Department that is, as the British Crown dependencies. Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man and the British Overseas Territories should all be placed together under one Department, but not the Foreign Office.”

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Anguilla and the other colonies in the West Indies were overseen by the committee of the Privy Council entitled, The Committee for Trade and Foreign Plantations. At that time in colonial history we were all labeled as “America”. So, there was the governor of “New York, in America”. There was the attorney-general of “Antigua, in America”, and there was the executive council of “Bermuda, in America”.

The Colonial Office replaced the Privy Council committee in 1768. It ran the colonies in the West Indies until late in the twentieth century. In 1968, with much of Africa and the West Indies having gone independent, the Colonial Office was merged with the Foreign Office.

As an aside, it seems to me that the philosophy behind the merger was straightforward. Those were the days when, as it was said, “Wogs begin at Dover”. Anyone from overseas was not really British, and was by definition foreign, or, worse, a wog. The thinking in Downing Street then, no doubt, was, we may as well lump the colonials and the Commonwealth in together with all those other wogs. So was born the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

British attitudes have changed. They do not think that way or speak that way any longer. [I sometimes think that we in the colonies learned from them too well. Many of the older ones among us, those over 30 years of age, still hold tenaciously to our juvenile race prejudices and fear of the foreigner. We think it make us culturally superior to those mongrel British who now promiscuously treat with all those foreigners. Little do we realise that it is just old-fashioned and outdated British race prejudice that we are aping.] As is so often the case with mimic-men, as Naipaul calls us, the original source of the behaviour has long changed, but we remain zombie-like, our prejudices frozen in the colonial past.

But, back to the main point. It is time for the UK to face up to the fact that Mr Rosindell highlights. It is an insult for us in the British Overseas Territories to continue to relate to the British Parliament and Government through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. A more relevant and suitable British Government Department must be found to replace the FCO in managing Britain's responsibilities in relation to the BOTs.

And, as an aside, is it not remarkable that they have their parliamentary and committee debates up on their website on the same day?

Related posts:

14 September 2007 - UK Relations

Congo

There are two web pages I want you to read. One is a judgment of the High Court in Anguilla in relation to how the Attorney-General’s Chambers handled the case against Joe Brice. The A-G’s Chambers were representing Niguel Streete. He is the Director of the Anguilla Financial Services Commission. The Commission is the offshore industry watchdog for Anguilla. The judgment is only three pages long. Read it and weep. If you need any explanation for any part of it, let me know. After you have finished reading, tell me which of you would want the A-G’s Chambers representing you in a dog bite case.

The second web page, titled Undue Diligence, belongs to Global Witness. It concerns the case of Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso. He is the son of the President of the Republic of Congo. He stands accused of stealing the oil wealth of the citizens of Congo. He used an Anguillian company, Long Beach, to do some of his embezzlements. [This report is very long. Use the search feature to find the bits that mention Anguilla.]

Global Witness is an international NGO established in 1993. It works to break the links between natural resource exploitation, conflict, poverty, corruption, and human rights abuses worldwide. This is a story of corruption in high places in Congo. My concern is how the events revealed affect Anguilla. The connection with Anguilla is the entities ICS Trust and ICS International. These are Hong Kong based company formation agents. Orient Investments is part of ICS. Orient Investments set up Long Beach in Anguilla. It held the shares in Long Beach in trust for Nguesso.

In addition to being the President’s son, Nguesso is also responsible for marketing Congo’s oil. He opened a bank account at one of Hong Kong’s largest banks. He had some of the proceeds of Congo’s oil sales deposited to it. He had his personal credit card bills paid from it. He stole millions. He squandered the proceeds on designer shopping in Paris and elsewhere. The UK High Court ruled in 2007 that Nguesso and his company were “unsavoury and corrupt”.

Up to now, the story is the usual one of private greed and public loss. An Anguillian company had been set up for the most despicable and corrupt of reasons: the rape and pillage of an impoverished nation’s resources. Anguilla’s connection might appear at most to be peripheral. The real shame comes when we learn that as far back as 2007 Global Witness wrote to Niguel Streete alerting him to this international fraud. We learn that Mr Streete assured Global Witness that he was dealing with the matter. It appears that it took a full year for Mr Streete to do anything at all. The best he could do, after repeated prodding, was to strike Long Beach off the Register of Companies in July 2008. This action is generally accepted as the administrative equivalent of sweeping the dust under the carpet while shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Nguesso’s exploitation of his people by the use of an Anguillian vehicle is a problem. The solution is for the local regulators and industry representatives to vehemently condemn this abuse of our facilities, and then to take whatever action they can to demonstrate that such conduct will not be acceptable.

Has Anguilla signed legislation making corruption elsewhere in the world an offence in Anguilla?

Anguilla’s company management laws make it compulsory for offshore providers to perform due diligence on prospective clients. Has there been a breach of this law? If there has been, what action needs to be taken?

Why did it take a full year from the time Mr Streete was alerted to the fraud for him to take even this lame and ineffectual action?

Does Mr Streete plan any further action against Orient Investments?

Will disciplinary action be brought against ICS if any is justified?

What is the Anguilla Financial Services Association doing to ensure that international bandits are not permitted to mis-use our jurisdiction?

How ready are we to confront and reassure the coming CFATF, and IMF, and Michael Foot’s review visits and assessments that will take place in the next few weeks?

Failure by Mr Streete’s office to proceed diligently and firmly in this matter will most likely result in further serious damage to Anguilla’s reputation.

Does Mr Streete have any other lawyer representing him besides the A-G’s Chambers? If not, I strongly recommend he find one. He needs competent legal advice.

Let me say that I have not researched Orient Investments. I have no idea who the local agent is. She might be my mother, for all I know. For the purposes of this post, it matters not.

And, finally, for any concern that this post will damage Anguilla’s offshore financial services industry, the answer is that the damage has already been done. These publications I refer to are out there in the public domain. It will only take one of our competitors, the financial services sectors of London or New York perhaps, to bring the story to the attention of Reuters or AP.