News

Anguilla is taking precautions to guard against cases of the Swine Flu entering Anguilla. The Ministry of Health and Social Development has announced that while there are still no restrictions on international travel, officials will be questioning travellers entering the island.

The galleries of the Atlin Noraldo Harrigan OBE Parliamentary Building were filled to capacity on Tuesday morning, April 21, when Anguilla’s newly-appointed British Governor, His Excellency William Alistair Harrison CVO, was sworn in by High Court Judge, Madam Justice ... who is on a short stint from the British Virgin Islands.

Pam Webster, one of Anguilla’s astute and frontline professional young women, has announced that she will stand in the next General Election as a candidate for the Anguilla Progressive Party in District I, Island Harbour, where she was born and resides with her husband and four-year old son.

Festival Del Mar, now in its second year at Island Harbour, Anguilla, the island’s main fishing village, has been described as having been a tremendous success. Such was the large crowd in attendance that one onlooker, unable to find a more descriptive term for the mass assembly and activities, said the scene was “a sea of people, and a sea of events.”

Mr Alistair Harrison CVO will arrive in Anguilla on Sunday 19 April 2009 to take up his appointment as Governor. He will be accompanied by his wife Sarah and their three children Matilda (Tilly) aged 9, and twins Eliza and Ralph, aged 5. Mr Harrison was previously scheduled to arrive in Anguilla on 9 April but was delayed due to the sudden death of his father.

The Anguilla Government has no immediate plans to send home any of its workers or reduce salaries, but is taking a hard look at cutting allowances, starting with members of the House of Assembly to save some one million dollars.

Opposition Parliamentarians in Anguilla, Hubert Hughes and Edison Baird, responded on Wednesday to the Government’s proposed austerity measures with much criticism saying there would have been no need for that course of action had more attention been paid to careful spending and savings “for the rainy day.”

Government officials and representatives of public sector staff associations and unions scratched their heads for solutions when they met on Tuesday afternoon this week with the current economic crisis being the focal point of their discussions.

Superintendent of Prisons in Anguilla, Conrad Gumbs, says the time is ripe to begin a process of paroling prisoners to give young rehabilitated offenders a chance to be accepted back into society as opposed to rotting in jail.

The Community College Development Unit in Anguilla now has a functioning Zenaida Cafeteria which serves both as a training facility for its many hospitality students and as a competing place of good food on the island.

For the first time in the parliamentary history of Anguilla, two persons holding no membership in the House of Assembly were called upon to present addresses at the first readings of draft bills for passage into law. The occasion was on Thursday, March 19th. The unusual event was heralded by Leader of Government Business, Chief Minister Osbourne Fleming, who has responsibility for Environment.

A Task Force, commissioned by the Ministry of Education, has submitted its report (with recommendations) on school violence and other behavioural problems relating to students at both campuses of the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School.
Permanent Secretary, Mrs. Chanelle Petty-Barret, issued a statement on Monday in which she said that the Ministry had become increasingly concerned about the incidence of violence at the school.

The people of Anguilla are being sensitized to the consequences of failing to do their part, even in a little way, to reduce the effects of global warming and sea level rise: important chunks of their touristic island and its barrier and fishing reefs could eventually disappear forever. It is a threat largely posed by greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide) emissions into the atmosphere and the use of an abundance of oil (often referred to as fossil fuel) that are already taking their destructive course on planet earth.

If all goes well, a new group of investors from the United States will take over the development of the Flag/Temenos project which closed operations in the second half of last year, sinking Anguilla’s economic and financial hopes.

The appointment has been announced of Mrs. Kathleen Rogers as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance. Her commendable achievement is a feather in the hat of aspiring and successful Anguillian young women who are quickly making their mark on the society in leading positions in the hierarchy of the public and private sectors.

The Anguilla House of Assembly met in full session on Tuesday this week, March 10, and gave a big send off for the first time to a departing Governor, in the person of His Excellency Mr. Andrew George, thus signifying the high esteem in which he was held since his appointment to the island almost three years ago. The outgoing representative of Queen Elizabeth (and the British Government) inspected a Guard of Honour formed by the Royal Anguilla Police Force, as well as the Police Community Band, before entering the crowded House of Assembly for the farewell ceremony.

With just one year before its Silver Anniversary, the National Bank of Anguilla is celebrating 24 years of service and achievement as one of the two indigenous and growing financial institutions on the island.

The Anguilla House of Assembly, which temporarily postponed the passage of the Prisoners Bill and the Probation Bill, may now be in a better position to consider the two pieces of draft legislation. This follows a thorough airing of the Bills at a public consultation held at the Teachers’ Resource Centre on March 2.

A core group comprising residents with a strong sense of community spirit, with a few of them being political aspirants, is at work at Island Harbour looking into ways and means of improving the village and taking particular interest in its young people.

The Anguilla House of Assembly has given its approval to legislation formally establishing a National Community College for the island.