Anguillian leader, Chief Minister, Osbourne Fleming, has undertaken to write to the British Government to appeal for assistance to help bail out the island out of its present economic and financial situation, as the impact of the global crisis closes in on Anguilla.

Hon. Chief Minister, Mr. Fleming and Hon. Evans Rogers

He made the disclosure to reporters during his weekly Tuesday press conference, telling them that on that day he would sit down with his Permanent Secretary and personnel from the Ministry of Finance to write the letter.

“We will pen to the British Government now, the position that Anguilla saw itself in six or seven months ago when we had hope, projects, ongoing development growth and measures to sustain this country for years to come,” he said. “All of those hopes are now shattered. We had hopes to develop our infrastructure, our capital development, our institutions [but] because of the present situation, those hopes are up to a point, dashed.

“And so I believe the time has come when we, as a Government and a people, should approach Her Majesty’s Government and ask: ‘What can you do for us? We did not ask you for anything when we had. We are facing some problems. What will be your position in the area of helping Anguilla to weather the storm?’”

Mr. Fleming went on: “This thing [the difficult economic and financial situation] could go on for longer than we expect. As President-Elect Obama has said… the thing could go on for two to three years. What will happen to poor Anguilla? We don’t have any gold, nor oil, so the only thing we can do is to tap on to Her Majesty’s Government and ask: ‘What is your position, how are you going to help us?’ In truth, in England today, Her Majesty’s Government is helping businesses there…”

The Chief Minister lamented that the situation will cause ripple effects on the island. He continued: “We now have, and will continue to have, a number of Anguillians who will, and have already, been displaced. This will affect the worker who is here on a work permit. It means that we cannot have someone being laid off from Malliouhana who worked in housekeeping, yet there is somebody in CuisinArt who is working in housekeeping. The jobs have to be placed into the hands of Anguillians first [once they are qualified in the various disciplines of the job market].”

To that end, Mr. Fleming called on all unemployed Anguillians to register their names, professions or disciplines at the Labour Department. “We will place you as long as we have somewhere for you to go,” he promised. “We will have to take the unpopular decision to tell some people on work permits that we are sorry, but we have to place Anguillians first. It is not something that we are happy to do, but the reality is that this has to be done. To that end, I want to make it clear that the Labour Department has been advised that although we have already slowed down on issuing work permits, to slow down even more now. We are not giving work permits for a number of different disciplines (although there will be occasions when we will have to still do that)…We don’t have the employment base like we use to…so there will be a serious slowdown of work permits.”

Earlier, the Chief Minister said that his Government had been told of a number of austerity measures being taken by certain business establishments in Anguilla. “In the tourism business today, the stakeholders are observing that the numbers of bookings for hotels in Anguilla are falling significantly,” he reported. “The months of February and March have always historically been the best two months of the tourism industry in Anguilla. What we are told is that these months are rating occupancy levels down as far as 29 and 30 percent, instead of having [as before] occupancy levels 90 to 100 percent.”

Mr. Fleming made the point that this meant that revenue from the tourism industry would fall and there would be a need for all business establishments to trim their expenditure. He noted that hotels had begun to lay off employees or reduce the number of hours of work. “We cannot expect, taking for example Malliouhana Hotel, with 235 employees, to operate full force…when the occupancy level is 30 percent and this holds good for all the different properties in Anguilla,” he reasoned. “In the case of Cap Juluca and CuisinArt, the staff members are experiencing a cut in hours. I hope that the managers of these establishments have sat and explained to the workers in detail why these actions have to be taken.”

The Chief Minister pointed out that as a consequence of the dilemma in the tourism industry, the Government’s revenue would be affected. “It is a chain reaction,” he said. “The stores, supermarkets, all around, will be affected.” He advised that as a further result of the global financial situation impacting Anguilla, austerity measures would also be taken the Government of Anguilla. “I had occasion [on Monday, January 12] to sit with the financial people and already [we] have begun to draft austerity measures that we would have to put in place if, and when, the time comes,” he said. “These are measures which I have not discussed with my colleagues yet, but these are things which we are knocking around in the Financial Department to enable us to survive in 2009.”

He was of the view that if the Flag Project were to resume construction operations and would pay some EC$16 million owed to Government, private sector companies and others, that this would go a long way towards relieving the economic and financial situation in Anguilla.

Mr. Fleming sounded a note of caution, expressing fear that the difficult situation might result in increased robberies and thefts on the island and he advised all persons to keep their properties securely protected.

The Chief Minister reminded the people of Anguilla that he, and Minister of Social Development, Evans Rogers, were traveling to St. Kitts on Wednesday this week to attend a meeting of the OECS Monetary Council to discuss the financial position of the world. He said he and Mr. Rogers would have an opportunity to see what advice would be forthcoming from the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank.

Mr. Rogers joined Mr. Fleming in expressing concern over the island’s financial situation. “The Ministry of Social Development is not a revenue earner, so to speak, and the ripple affects or chain reaction that the Chief Minister mentioned, will have a profound effect upon the various programmes that we hope to implement sometime during this year,” he said.

He warned that a number of the projects would be “in a holding pattern because of the uncertainty in terms of what Government can contribute to such programmes.” The Minister added: “Even with the basic functions, it is difficult for us to look beyond the infrastructure and the other projects we need to deal with.”

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