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.

Hon. Osbourne Fleming, Hon. Victor Banks, and Hon. Evans Rogers

Chief Minister and Minister of Information, Osbourne Fleming, told this to reporters at his weekly press conference on Tuesday. “Last week Thursday [in Executive Council] we began our exercise regarding some austerity measures that we will have to embark upon as we look at the economic situation in Anguilla,” he told the reporters, his voice reflecting a sombre mood. “We have told you that we have seen a slowdown in revenue. The figures have just come in for the end of March and they look more promising than we had thought. However, we realise we have to address some of the problems and so we came up on a few scenarios. I want to make the point that this Government is not interested in laying-off people. We are not happy to adjust salaries so we must find ways and means before we get to that so we have these two areas out for now. We are not contemplating laying-off people, neither are we contemplating reductions in salaries right now. We are going ahead and, as the situation gets better or worse, we will address it as it comes to us.

“We want to start with the Elected Members of the House of Assembly in terms of suspension of entertainment allowances. We are looking at telephone allowances and may be you don’t know but Members get a constituency allowance of a thousand dollars a month each and we are looking at that also. Those are the first steps. The Chief Minister himself has agreed to forgo any allowance for telephone…The cost of fuel for the Chief Minister’s car (CM) will continue [to be paid from public funds] but for the other vehicle (CMO), the Chief Minister will pay for his own gas like the other Ministers are doing…We are also looking at taking the lead in the reduction of our salaries and that’s the next measure. We haven’t finalised that as yet, but we are looking at curtailing some expenditure in those areas.”

Replying to a question, Mr. Fleming said that consideration was also being given to reducing travel allowances paid to various Government employees. He could not be more specific, saying that it would be necessary to review each case for justification. He made the point, however, that while in some cases there would be a reduction, in many others there might be a complete elimination. He noted that each department had a Government vehicle and stated that at times travelling officers would be told to use that vehicle instead of their private means of transportation.

“We will finalise these areas later. We are not blind to the fact that some austerity measures have to be taken… and I think that as Members of the House of Assembly, we have an obligation to set the pace and to take the lead in recognising the problems,” he said, stating that the cuttings in expenditure should take effect from the beginning of May.

He added: “As a Government we are watching our finances on a regular basis. We are doing all we can to maximise collections and we are watching our expenses carefully. To that end, I mentioned that things looked a little better in the month of March. The reason for that is that we are putting tight measures in place to ensure that we curtail spending and increase our revenue collections.”

Minister of Finance, Victor Banks, said the measures, to which the Chief Minister referred, were put forward by a technical team in his Ministry. “The overall outlook for the economy continues to be challenging,” he went on. “As the Chief Minister indicated, this month the relationship between the recurrent expenditure and recurrent revenue has been much more favourable than last month so while we are predicting to have a deficit for the first quarter of about 12 million dollars …we are showing a deficit of 8.7 million. While it augurs well for the future, there are a lot of other issues and factors that can change that.”

Both Mr. Banks and Minister of Social Development, Evans Rogers, stressed that the suspension or cutting of entertainment and travel allowances would also affect certain categories of civil servants. Mr. Banks said that overtime payments to public sector workers would be replaced by time off as one of the cost-saving measures. He observed that this would not affect some employees such as Customs Officers whose overtime was being paid by merchants or shipping companies.

Mr. Rogers, replying to a question, denied reports that low level health workers had been, or were being, laid off but stated that discussions on budgetary and other financial matters were currently under discussion with the Health Authority of Anguilla. He said that as regards the summer festival the costs associated with bringing in artistes and the various shows were being looked into in terms of making savings, but without reducing the effectiveness and enjoyment of the event.

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