Anguilla’s Chief Minister, Osbourne Fleming, says the 20 percent pay increase which he announced last week for civil servants, non-established workers and pensioners is a result of a booming economy and a good public sector financial position.

CM Fleming

“Once the country prospers we have to compensate the people that make it happen,” he told The Anguillian. “In Anguilla today it is not the Ministers in isolation. It is the civil servants working with the Government who make it happen.

“I am not a Customs Officer. I am not an Immigration Officer. It is the people who are the Customs and Immigration Officers, those working in the Treasury and other areas of the Civil Service, who are the ones making it happen.
Now that we are seeing a measure of prosperity, we have come to the conclusion that we must share that with the people who work with us.”

Asked what the island’s financial position was up to last weekend, Mr. Fleming replied:

“The Government’s finances are in good shape. That does not mean that we do not have our problems in getting all the money we need. As I speak, we have a surplus of some forty million dollars. That surplus we cannot touch. That money guarantees any loan that we have but as of today we still have about six million dollars in the black in the bank.”

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