Editorial

In a stirring New Year’s sermon, one of the religious leaders in Anguilla, pointed to a string of various concerns in Anguilla and the rest of the world, and emphasised the need for spiritual renewal and divine providence as an answer to many of the societal maladies today and those creeping on in the future. He was obviously fearful of the future but found much comfort through his strong Christian convictions and prayer that there was reason for hope through the guidance of the Great Jehovah and the commitment of the citizenry to positive living and leadership.

How quickly one year passes and another begins! It’s Christmas time again and the New Year, 2007, with all its unknown challenges, is upon us.

Every year the Government’s Budget to finance the public services in Anguilla is getting bigger and bigger. The 2007 estimates of revenue and expenditure are at an all time high.

One of the social services the Anguilla Government says it will be introducing in the near future is a National Health Insurance System which is certainly a good idea. However, in order for it to properly get off the ground and eventually satisfactorily succeed and serve its purpose, it must have a well-planned and carefully ordered foundation. One way of ensuring this is that all stakeholders and other key persons must be well informed and prepared for it. In the first case, the Government and the Committee tasked with implementing the system must be on the same wave length with clear and sound policies, objectives and safeguards on the table.

One of the latest attempts by Government at ensuring greater social development is a move to introduce a National Health Insurance system for the people of Anguilla to which, understandably, they will have to contribute. This is both necessary and complimentary but really only touches the tip of an ice bug of problems facing the island.

Anguilla is once again in the jazz mood this week with the commencement of the Annual Tranquillity Jazz Festival aimed at “jump-starting” the island’s 2006-2007 tourist season. There has been a considerable amount of advertisement of the four-day event overseas and in Anguilla and it is understood that many visitors have already arrived and are still coming in for the occasion.

We have come to the start of the 2006/2007 Tourism Season and our hotels, guest houses, villas and ancillary services are all geared up to receive, delight and pamper our visitors from wherever they are coming.

By the time the next issue of The Anguillian is published on Friday, November 3, the 2006/2007 tourism season will have begun. By all appearances, the previous season in Anguilla was an excellent one with a number of visitors still coming in although the main resorts, restaurants and ancillary services were closed for the usual break and refurbishing work.

The coming formal introduction of a National Community College for Anguilla is both a bold and necessary initiative by the island’s Government and should have materialised long before now. The demands being placed on our people by the growth of the private and public sectors, for better educated and skilled Anguillians, make it mandatory for our nationals to be well qualified. They must be in a position to fill the increasing number and variety of jobs, many of which stand to be, and are being taken, by non-Anguillians with the requisite qualifications.

This week Anguillians and others at Wallblake Airport stared in fascination as a young woman, with a full life of many productive years ahead of her and a bright career to her credit, told of how she freely donated one of her kidneys to Chief Minister Osbourne Fleming that he might live.

The myriad of complexities that can befall a people in their own homeland can sometimes result from their own making. For instance, the Bible states that the children of the kingdom shall be cast out… and others will come from the east, west, north and south and take their places. While this has a biblical interpretation, it can also have what may be called an earthly meaning and in this context, Anguilla stands at a reckoning point.

Elsewhere in this edition of The Anguillian is a letter signed by a group of persons calling for the establishment of a government-sponsored bus system. This is not a new suggestion as it has made its rounds in the community before but without success. The main answer has been that it will not succeed because of the large and increasing number of privately-owned vehicles on the island and yet there must not be an outright dismissal of the proposition. The reason is that as Anguilla continues to develop by leaps and bounds, the government and the public must rethink their position on a number of issues to see whether it is not time for a change of mind.

Death is no respecter of persons. It is cold blooded. It struck me most graphically and painfully on Thursday 7th September when my brother Johnson passed away in my arms. When the last breath a tiny puff, not enough to shake a feather, left him, it signaled his departure. Such is the frailty of life. As he lay lifeless in my arms his body went cold. The icy hands of death had touched him and I wept.

Anybody who reads through the pages of this newspaper finds at times that some of them are replete with photographs of our hotel employees. They are shown either receiving awards for exemplary service or, as in this edition, enjoying themselves at the end of season staff parties. The pictorials are radiant and happy scenes that gladden the heart.

Service to the community and mankind may be a big and plausible element in most cases, but the underlying reason that companies and individuals go into business is to make money. And nothing is wrong about that when it is done in a manner that is honest and takes into account the economic wellbeing of those they serve. One way to do so is to keep prices at a reasonable and affordable level for all customers and to come up with strategies and guidelines which may assist the public in using the services being provided to their best advantage and at the same time control consumption and cost.

If all goes as planned, there should be a new educational opportunity in Anguilla in September for young Anguillians desirous of developing their skills to meet the growing demands of the local job market.

Many things have certainly changed in Anguilla and in the majority of cases the changes are predicated on what is happening in the outside world and how the impact is transmitted here and to the rest of the Caribbean by whatever means or fashion. Take security for example. Never before, like now, has there been such a need to methodically screen persons and their baggage at the ports. The Anguilla Government, quite rightly, has had to comply with international security regulations and airlines’ requirements by going to much expense to put the necessary scanning machines and administrative systems in place.

The Anguilla Summer Festival is here again with all of its attendant trappings of historical culture and merry-making. Large numbers of people, desirous of escaping the difficulties of last minute travel, have already begun arriving on the island ahead of the start of the main festivities.

The importance of the urgent need to protect the children of Anguilla cannot be over emphasised.

For this reason, the workshop held this week and sponsored by the Anguilla Government in collaboration with the Child Protection Programme of the National Children’s Home in the UK, the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, was an important undertaking. The workshop facilitator, Ena Trotman-Stobey, who has been raising the concern for a child protection plan in Anguilla for a long time during her frequent visits, is to be commended for her dedication and guidance not just for the workshop but for actually getting the Government to work on an Action Plan.

It is rumoured that the UK contingent of the Drugs & Firearms Task Force in Anguilla is to be reduced leaving two of the three highly-trained and experienced, though retired, officers on the island.