News

His Excellency Alistair Harrison, Governor of Anguilla, announced on Tuesday, March 9 that, on the unanimous recommendation of the Judicial Service Commission he has approved the appointment of Ms Ivenia Benjamin as Senior Magistrate. Ms Benjamin is a citizen of the Commonwealth of Dominica. She has experience there of working as magistrate, in the Attorney-General’s Chambers and in private practice. She will be taking up her position in early April.

The National Bank of Anguilla, now celebrating its 25th Anniversary, and the Organisation of Early Childhood Education, observing a month of activities, were largely represented by their banking staff and teachers respectively, at the worship service at the Seventh-day Adventist Church on Saturday, March 6.

Almost 43 years after he led the 1967 Anguilla Revolution, which culminated in the island’s formal separation from St. Kitts-Nevis in 1980, James Ronald Webster was honoured with a public holiday filled with a spectacular series of social and cultural events on his 84th birthday on Tuesday this week. The morning and afternoon celebration, in recognition of his revolutionary and fearless leadership of Anguilla, will be an annual event. Mr. Webster, who was not in attendance, was reported by Chief Minister, Hubert Hughes, to have been at an “undisclosed location.” Reports stated however that he had left the island for his customary visit to St. Croix, US Virgin Islands.

This Friday, March 5, is exactly one week since the commencement of a new House of Assembly in Anguilla, occasioned by the swearing in of the island’s first female Speaker, the Elected Members, the First Nominated Member and the two Ex-Officio Members, the Deputy Governor and the Attorney General. The Second Nominated Member is yet to be announced and sworn in.

The Deputy Governor of Anguilla, the Hon. Stanley Reid, has sent a letter to the Supervisor of Elections, Mr. Colville Petty OBE, expressing appreciation and commendation for the efficient and timely manner in which he conducted the election process.

The letter, dated 22nd February 2010, reads as follows:

Mr. Jerome Roberts, a member of the Anguilla Progressive Party, who was elected to serve as the representative of District 2 (East End/Sandy Hill) in the General Election on February 15, has decided to take his seat on the Opposition Bench in the Anguilla House of Assembly.

After a protracted and gruelling General Election campaign, the people of Anguilla voted for a change of Government on February 15, 2010. The Anguilla United Front (AUF), which dominated the running of the island’s affairs for a decade, lost office to the main opposition party, the Anguilla United Movement (AUM), led by Hubert Hughes who previously headed the island’s Government from 1994 to 2000.

On 12th January 2010, Mr. Rosemond James, Director General of the Eastern Caribbean Civil Aviation Authority and Mr. Gregory Mc Alpin, ECCAA’s Director of Flight Safety traveled to Haiti to attend a meeting of the Caribbean Aviation Safety and Security Oversight System (CASSOS). They checked in to the Hotel Montana and later that afternoon, the hotel and much of Haiti’s capital, Port Au Prince, was destroyed by the earthquake which we now know has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

With the General Election in Anguillla set for Monday, February 15, Police Commissioner, Keithly Benjamin, has delivered a radio address pointing out some important rules which the electorate and candidates are required to observe by law.

A fifteen-year dream by an Anguillian national of a tourism project, called Etasian Resort, is now coming to fruition in Anguilla. The ground-breaking ceremony at the site, located on ten acres of land between the Anguilla Great House and CuisinArt Resort and Spa, was held on Tuesday this week, February 2.

Part of the success of the just-ended 38th Anniversary of the Royal Anguilla Police Force was that three members of the community were major winners of the raffles which were among the various Police Week activities.

The Department of Environment in Anguilla has set out to educate the public on the threat to the island’s landscapes and seascapes by a number of alien invasive species. The lunch time meetings have been appropriately dubbed “the Brown-Bag Lunch Presentations” taking about 20 minutes.

With Nomination Day having been on January 21, and several days having elapsed since then, Election Day is just three weeks away on February 15.

Candidates in the seven electoral districts contesting the February 15 General Election in Anguilla have been exhorted, as incumbent and aspiring political leaders, to focus their attention on good leadership and to follow the example of the Biblical Nehemiah.

This week is a history-making period in Anguilla as it is the first time that a Roman Catholic Church Diocesan Assembly has been held on the island. It is the 26th Meeting of the Association of the Diocesan Clergy of the Province of Castries with over 30 Priests and Deacons attending from across the region. The five-day Assembly opened with a Mass on Monday evening, January 18, at St. Gerard’s Parish Church at Wallblake.

With the General Election in Anguilla announced for Monday, February 15, all the machinery relating to the polling has virtually been put into place by the Supervisor of Elections, Mr. Colville Petty, OBE.

St. James School of Medicine was launched in Anguilla on Monday this week in a brand new locally-owned building in The Quarter, with an initial 25 students, from the United States and Canada, enrolled.

After much speculation, the Anguilla House of Assembly was dissolved on Wednesday, January 6, on a proclamation issued by His Excellency the Governor, Alistair Harrison, in preparation for elections to a new House of Assembly which are due to be held on February 15. Nominations will close on January 21. (See proclamation elsewhere in The Anguillian).

In the above photograph, is a presentation of a model of the proposed Ferry Terminal at Blowing Point, recently put on display there for general information.