These days I have been giving thanks and Ises to JAH more than ever for those years of poverty in Jamaica. They have prepared me very well for these days in Anguilla and those to come when more and more of us will be living han’ to mout, buying food as we get a little money and having bills mount as they’ve never mounted before. In a meeting held on Tuesday to discuss youth policy, when I learned that inmates at Her Majesty’s Prison receive free medical attention, I immediately asked the other participants to tell the police where to meet me burning a spliff that afternoon.

I figured that jail would be the place to receive medical attention for all the various ailments that I cannot afford to pay for on the outside. When I think of how I give my labour to the State (what State?), I think it is high time that the State look after me. Sorry JFK but I refuse to be the last fool thinking what I can do for my country when I am currently living hand to mouth and see myself firmly joining the ranks of Anguilla’s poor as the year 2003 progresses.
I am hereby asking the authorities to kindly exempt my from any other tax that they may have in mind and if they insist that I pay, then I must be added to the welfare list. I was going to ask ANGLEC the same thing but since I got such good service from them the other day, I changed my mind. What happened was that the current went off in The Valley just as I was trying to finish an important piece of work. I called the office and had my steam taken away by the utterly polite response as the receptionist connected me to the power plant where the response was not just polite but very helpful. When the power was restored shortly thereafter, I stopped grumbling about the fuel surcharge. The Environmental Tax however, is not something I am likely to stop grumbling about at all, especially since I believe that I was the first person, not to think of it but to put a proposal in writing before the Government of Anguilla several years ago. Someone from the Ministry of Finance will correct me if I am wrong.
My proposal, submitted on behalf of the Anguilla National Trust was in keeping with what some of the other OECS countries had initiated and it was for an additional US $1.50 or EC $4.00 to be collected from all non-Anguillians at the same time as the Departure Tax and that the revenue thus generated should be dedicated to meeting the needs of all of the under resourced agencies providing environmental services, including the Trust and the Anguilla Tourist Board but that it be not applied to solid waste management as greater efficiencies needed to be achieved in the management of that aspect of Environmental Health services. I believe that the Environmental Health Department has achieved greater efficiency and credit must be given where it is due. Now I look forward to the day when the enforcement of the litter law will be as highly prioritised as other laws for to take my tax dollar to pay people to clean up after me is not what I consider sustainability to be about.
Several obstacles were considered when I submitted my proposal. First of all, the Minister of Finance indicated that the government had other ideas for how to improve the revenue base from Departure Tax and as we know, that was eventually hiked across the board. In typical Anguilla style, we grumbled but we paid. Another consideration was that there would be a problem with St. Martin. It was thought that the French would reciprocate but I thought that that situation could have been negotiated for a different outcome had there been the will. The proposal to tax only holders of non-Anguillian passports was intended to avoid asking Anguillians to pay yet another tax. One person thought it would be unfair for the tax to be levied on those persons making a claim to Anguillian nationality but not yet having it. I feel like a fool now because we have ended up paying so much more and with hardly a murmur. I believe that Anguillians are ably demonstrating the capacity to pay even more tax but as I say, some of us living hand to mouth right now. At the time of submitting our proposal, we had surveyed every visitor we could get our hands on and while our government and tourism authorities were saying that visitors could not be asked to pay another dollar, the general response from the “up-market” visitors was that departure tax was not at all among their considerations when choosing a destination and that they would be happy to pay an environmental tax but would want to have visible results of its application. In all of the radio discussion last week, I heard several concerns about who would pay and the method of collection but my concern is who will keep tabs on the matter to ensure that the money goes only where it is supposed to go and nowhere else.
Near the end of last year I got a shock at the cost of taking out a birth certificate because I had forgotten about that increase from EC$10 to EC$20. It was with great reluctance that I forked out $80 when I had budgeted for only $40. I did ask the young lady at the Registrar’s Office not to tell me what she was telling me about the extra money being for the raised seal or the stamp or the certification or some other thing that I knew to be there all along. I recently learned that one now has to pay $40 for a birth certificate, certificates of death, marriage and so on but I don’t believe because I have not even heard one murmur. It can’t be true but if it is, I think it should immediately be raised to $50 because clearly Anguillians can pay. But not me because I done living han to mout already.
My advice to those of you who are not there yet is to prepare to wash out your milk tins and your sugar jars. Prepare to wash off your dough and feed your children bread-stuffing sandwiches. By now you should have already learned how to water down your dish liquid so that you don’t use that much water rinsing your dishes and you should know how to arrest your white wash cycle to save the water to wash the darker and the dirtier clothes. One of my sons as a child didn’t like to bathe and used to grumble that he didn’t see why he had to bathe when he was just going to get dirty again. Now that the Water Department has found the way to rectify my $20,000 bill, I can afford bathe again but if that Environmental Tax gets passed to the consumer, I’m going to have to bathe in the dark and only God knows how I’m going to find those parts that need washing most. Hard times are here and unless I am the only one on the whole island living hand to mouth, I urge you to be good citizens and pay up any monies you have owing to the government whether by way of unpaid taxes or bills. However, having done that, I want you join me in formulating a loud and clear response that can help our government to hear and understand that the poor can take no more.

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