Concerned About Good Governance

Bill Grandfield
P O Box 1171
The Valley
Anguilla
British West Indies
July 28, 2007

Editor of Anguillan

Sir, I congratulate the Government of Anguilla (GoA) that they are inviting Anguillians to apply for scholarships to pursue various degree courses. It is good that on the radio it was announced that only people already accepted by a university for a particular course would be considered.This goes a long way to ensuring that only people of serious intent will be considered.

In addition, job opportunities are advertised in the Public Service.There is a clear intent to improve the skill base and to strengthen the Public Service. In these times of criticism of the GoA it would be good for us to recognize this.There is of course a long way to go but action is being taken and it cannot be done overnight.

Sleepy Anguilla is in all our past and we are now playing the role of catch-up with the rest of the world. We have a way to go and the best way there is by steady progress. In the interim, the GoA is in the unfortunate position of action by re .ghting.

This is difficult for us all but steadfast action will see us through. Mistakes of all sorts are being made and experience is always dearly bought. No one yet has been able to avoid mistakes or the cost.The acquisition of experience is costing Anguilla dear and it is unfortunate that we only have one Anguilla.We will have to live with many of our mistakes, but lessons must be learned.The fact that things are dif.cult must never be used as an excuse to perpetuate the present state of affairs. One of the lessons that the GoA must learn is when to engage people of adequate experience, perhaps for one task only. One such occasion could have been in agreeing terms and conditions with developers.

This is a general observation and is not the purpose of this letter.The purpose is to ask you to consider the case where a person, wishing to embark on a project makes application to the planning department. After careful consideration, permission was declined because the application did not conform to planning policy.The staff of the planning department acted correctly and with sensitivity.The applicant behaved with maturity, accepted the decision and decided to move on. It is important that we learn from this.
Some further lessons occur to me although other people may be able to add to the list. I would welcome reading constructive suggestions in The Anguillian. The points that I would like to offer are:

1. Staff in the Public Service should given the empowerment, motivation and skills to properly serve the public. It is an important management function to encourage and to delegate to junior staff. Failure to do this is poor management.

2. Increase numbers of suitably skilled people and to send properly motivated Anguillians for training.

3. An applicant, in this case for planning permission, should be briefed in the very early stages of planning and application in order to avoid the wasting of time and effort by the applicant and by the Public Service. In addition the hope of a favorable outcome to an application should be realistic.

4. Details of all zoning plans should be well publicized. A plan can be seen on the wall in the planning of.ce. However this is not the latest drawing. Should someone request a copy of the latest plan he/she is advised by a charming young lady that the latest drawing although readily available is not what is currently being worked to. It is completely correct to inform the public of this.

5. Public Service staff should be trained in the implementation and use of the planning process.

The fact that planning legislation is still in draft after in excess of 10 years leaves the whole process in disarray and open to abuse. It is vital to the good governance of Anguilla that proper legislation is put in place without delay. There can be no excuse for waiting over 10 years.The present system demands that ad-hoc decisions be made.This is unfair to every one because applicants will feel ill-treated and officers of the planning department will be open to charges of favoritism and inconsistent application of the regulations. These charges would of course extend to elected members of the GoA.These people are under plenty of pressure at present and I would have thought that they could ill afford more accusations of impropriety.

It is most important to ensure that the regulations are applied even-hand-idly. The general perception is that this is not the case at present. Managers in the Public Service and the GoA elected representatives need .rmness of purpose and to have steadfast recourse to the law.There is perceived favoritism at present and this is damaging the GoA credibility.

In the draft planning the GoA has identi.ed industrial areas, some of which are on government land. To assist with small scale commercial development it may be possible for the GoA to establish an exchange scheme so the land in residential areas belonging to people who wish to start a business development can be exchanged for industrial land. However I can well imagine that the GoA may not wish to do this, taking the view that they are not in the real estate business. An alternative is to make venture land available to qualifying Anguillians on favorable terms and rent in a business park. To do this the GoA should designate areas for business parks providing onsite water and electricity.The giving of aid should be considered to encourage indigenous entrepreneurship. We really do need to diversify away from tourism. I do not expect the GoA to decide how to do this because it would lead to too much political interference in the economy, but they must encourage Anguillians to do it.

To encourage the GoA and the Public Service in improving procedures we need to identify mistakes and then to work together to rectify them. A general attitude of criticism and fault finding only encourages people to be secretive and to try to dodge any blame that there may be.This attitude is damaging us all.

I make these suggestions in the hope that it may help with good governance and an improvement in our lives and welfare.The urgent need is to legislate without delay on laws that are in draft.

Yours faithfully,
Bill Grandfield