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Anguilla's Gov't Seeks To Clarify, An Apparent Misleading Claim By Dominica's Prime Minister

12/11/2009 20:59:00 Etc/GMT+1

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The Government of Anguilla would like to further state that it has never approached the Government of Dominica for a loan or gift at any time. The facts regarding the statements made by the Prime Minister of Dominica can be easily verified by the ECCB.

(Permanent Secretary of Finance, Ministry of Finance) - The Ministry of Finance seeks to clarify an unfortunate claim by the Prime Minister of Dominica Mr. Roosevelt Skerrit in which he stated that the Government of Dominica gave the Government of Anguilla Twelve million Eastern Caribbean (EC) dollars (EC$12,000,000.00) as a loan. The facts are as follow.

Anguilla is part of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU). All the governments of the Currency Union are allocated a sum of money by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) that is available for short-term credit if needed. These funds are made available from profits made by the ECCB and not from monies deposited by regional governments.

The Government of Anguilla made an application for a short-term credit facility from the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank in November from this fund. As a result the ECCB negotiated with the Governments of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union which is customary, to enable the Bank to provide the funding to the Government of Anguilla.

The Government of Anguilla is required to pay back the loan with interest to the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank and not to the Government of Dominica or any other Government. Additionally the Government of Anguilla has used its available line of credit in the past to assist other Governments from the Currency Union.

The statement by the Prime Minister of Dominica does not accurately reflect the facts and can be misleading. The Honourable Chief Minister, Mr.Osbourne Fleming, has sought to address the issue by contacting the Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank Mr. Dwight Venner and requested of the ECCB to request a retraction of the statement from Mr. Skerrit. Mr. Fleming is also attempting to contact the Prime Minister of Dominica to request a retraction directly of this most unfortunate and misleading statement.

The Government of Anguilla would like to further state that it has never approached the Government of Dominica for a loan or gift at any time. The facts regarding the statements made by the Prime Minister of Dominica can be easily verified by the ECCB.

The Ministry of Finance hopes that this statement would clarify the misconceptions held regarding the statement made by Prime Minister Skerrit.

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Comments (10 posted)

Star 12/12/2009 08:02:10 Etc/GMT+1

How could such a mistake happen? Anguilla is much more prosperous than Dominica, given the fact that there are many nationals of Dominica who are living and working in Anguilla, because they cannot find work in their homeland of Dominica. In addition, their quality and standard of living in Anguilla is at a much higher standard than it is in Dominica. I agree with CM Fleming for seeking to retract this misconception that Dominica gave Anguilla a loan.

Visitor 12/12/2009 12:22:08 Etc/GMT+1

Skerrit like so many Politicians was bending the truth in his favour to try bamboozle his audience - sounds familiar? Why didn't Anguillians know their Government had a $12M loan from the ECCB though?

-1

eccb worker 12/12/2009 13:54:45 Etc/GMT+1

The ECCB (Eastern Caribbean Central Bank) is the lender of last resort to all commercial banks and to all participating governments, therefore participating governments borrow from the ECCB. The Central Bank makes an allocation to Governments in the form of CREDITS. The less a government borrow the higher the CREDITS gets.

For the past five years Dominica has not borrowed any funds from the Central Bank, therefore, Dominica had a CREDIT allocation to the tune of EC$89 million. This means that Dominica could borrow a total of EC$89 million from the ECCB.

What happened in this case is that Antigua and Anguilla has utilised all their CREDIT Allocation. That is they could not borrow any more money from the ECCB at this point in time.

Dominica, having an allocation of some EC$89 million which is not being utilized, gave to Antigua some EC$24 million worth of CREDITS and last week gave Anguilla EC$12 million worth of CREDITS.

Dominica now has a balance of EC$53 million worth of CREDITS. It is correct that the Minister of Finance had to give his consent in writing for these countries to use the CREDITS.

Dominica did not give these countries actual cash. As a matter of FACT Dominica does not have that amount of money in the ECCB readily available. What happened is that the Minister of Finance gave written consent for these sister countries to utilise a portion of its CREDIT Allocation to borrow from the ECCB.

The Prime Minister was talking off the cuff and may have given the wrong impression. Had a prepared speech been written, the correct technical jargon would have been used.

The PM is not at all incorrect in stating that Dominica assisted these sister countries, but may have used the wrong technical jargon while talking off the cuff.

I do hope you could post this explanation prominently and let us put this thing to rest.

Thanks very much.

dominican 12/12/2009 14:22:17 Etc/GMT+1

the government of dominica has been lying to the people pver and over agian.the caribbean leaders need to come together nad stop the bribry and liers thats happening in this corrupt government.only god knows and only he can help us from the hand of this lying leader.

zeppy 12/12/2009 17:19:37 Etc/GMT+1

Excerpt from Anthony Astaphans response on www.Dominicanewsonline.com"Antigua's Minister of Finance and Anguilla's Chief Minister must know that. Both economies are in trouble. Antigua is now with the IMF. Both have had loans and facilities from the Central Bank. The restructuring and extension required the use of unused credit at the Central Bank.

The following is an explanation on the use of unused facilities.

"Advances”

Temporary advances are granted to Governments for periods ranging from one month to one year. In situations where a government has insufficient credit available (unused credit) to meet its needs, a request may be made to other governments to surrender the unused portion of their allocation. This could be done through bilateral arrangements between participating governments. This ensures that all lending remains within the global limit.

The striking thing about these denials from Antigua and Anguilla is the speed at which they came. Why could they not have waiting until clarification by fax or email was obtained? More pertinently, what were they responding to? That Skerrit and DA gave them gifts of money directly from Dominica? Well, if that is what they responded to they are right. But neither the Minister of Finance nor the Chief Minister can deny the use of Dominica's unused credit at the Fiscal Facility for the restructuring of Antigua's loan and Anguilla's credit extension."

Tyrone Hodge 12/12/2009 20:47:52 Etc/GMT+1

I think it's on a need t know basis. I understand that there needs to be transparency in government, but at the same time I don't expect them to come out and give every little detail. After all it's their responsibility to run the government. What is interesting here is the fact the Skerrit told a bold faced lie which he knew cpuld be easily verified and reflects poorly on him and his credibility.