There is an urgent need for something to be done with respect to the exorbitant cost of living now affecting the people of Anguilla but who are not alone in this malady that is spreading across the Caribbean and indeed the world. Everybody is complaining. If persons who are well-salaried and with better financial means are crying, how about those among us whose income and resources or not just marginal but almost non-existent?

The energy crisis, with fuel oil prices rising rapidly and affecting all consumer goods and services, has become one of today’s greatest challenges. There appears to be no ease of the situation which in fact is only getting worse. Now at EC$15.00 per gallon at the pumps in Anguilla, the price of fuel is threatening to go up even more in the coming days, weeks and months.

Chief Minister Osbourne Fleming has predicted that by year-end the cost of fuel may well be US$7 per gallon (the equivalent of EC$21.00). He has suggested that motorists should limit their travel around the island, cutting out all unnecessary driving, a matter which is more easily said than done. ANGLEC, which recently raised the cost of electricity by 13 cents as a fuel surcharge, is also advising consumers to restrict their use of household electrical appliances to have lower bills, something that is also difficult to do and runs counter with the level of life to which we have become so accustomed.
The Chief Minister did not stop at the fuel problem. He went on, and quite rightly so, to comment on the high cost of food. “It pains my heart to see people coming from the shops with 200 dollars-worth of groceries in their hand,” he said in the Anguilla House of Assembly recently. He spoke of his own desire, and for Government, on a whole, “to do something” to reduce the cost of basic food items. “Maybe the time has come for the Government to look at [Customs] exemption for basic food items like rice, sugar, flower, oil and so,” he told his fellow parliamentarians. “We have to find some way to help the people of Anguilla.” Nothing more has been heard about this matter.

Since then, the Nevis Island Government, after studying the food consumption patterns on that island has identified a group of foods items eaten daily by Nevisians for a relief of Consumption Tax. As a consequence there has been 100% tax reduction on rice, flour, cream of wheat, sardines and tuna fish and a 10% reduction Tax on chicken, cheese, tin milk, vegetable oil, cereals, fruits and vegetables. In the case of non food items, there has been 100% reduction of tax on adult and baby pampers, a sizeable ease when the fairly large population of Nevis is taken into account.

The Anguilla Government needs “to do something”, as Chief Minister Fleming said, and to do so urgently. Mr. Fleming boasts about knowing about everything that is happening on the island as a result of his regular Sunday trips through the various communities. He must also be hearing the cries of the people. That, we suppose, is how he saw persons coming from the shops with “200 dollars-worth of groceries in their hand.” If the Government cannot do anything about the rising prices of fuel, a matter which is imported, it can certainly “do something” about the high costs of basic food items as Nevis Government has done.

L-R: Sergeant Yearwood, Deputy Commissioner Illidge Richardson and Sergeant Best

| Printer-friendly page | Send this article to a friend |

World News