Falklands : Summary of Executive Council Meeting Held on 25 August 2011
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 31.08.2011 (Article Archived on 14.09.2011)
This month’s agenda was relatively short with a number of the papers just requiring formal approval by Executive Council.
Summary of Executive Council Meeting Held on 25 August 2011 by the Honourable Jan Cheek
This month’s agenda was relatively short with a number of the papers just requiring formal approval by Executive Council.
A planning appeal was taken first for which I was replaced by the Honourable Dick Sawle because I sat on the Planning Committee at which the decision being appealed was made. The appeal was upheld partially and the appellant should have been informed of the decision by now.
The Taxation Officer was present to explain the purpose of several taxation related papers. Most of these aimed at clarifying a number of anomalies in the taxation system. The first highlighted the fact that penalties imposed for late filing of some returns should not have been imposed under current legislation. The paper recommends that the Taxes Ordinance should be amended for implementation from 1 January 2012. Another paper agreed would extend for a further year the tax exemptions for defence contractors’ employees. This will be reviewed before the year is up because if civilianisation is to succeed then there will have to be a level playing field in terms of taxation. The next paper sought to clarify the position of those directly contracted to work for the MOD. The last proposed to simplify and clarify a number of elements of the Taxes and MST Ordinance, for example by making winter fuel allowance tax exempt.
We deferred a paper on road surfacing pending the ‘away day’ on Monday 29 August which was originally planned to be totally dedicated to roads and transport. Other subjects are now listed, but I believe we are agreed to work through each subject so some of the others may fall to be discussed at a later meeting.
A paper on illex fees was agreed, as were an order for a new special coin issue and the FIMCO overdraft guarantee.
The paper outlining detail of the administration by FIDC of a combination of soft loans and grants for import substitution was agreed with some modification to encourage speedy take up. We agreed that for the first two years loans should be repayable with an interest rate of 1% over base rate.
We noted an update on the Tourism Development Strategy.
The nomination of a new lay member for the Planning and Building Committee was agreed.
It was decided to require a non returnable deposit on FIG building plots. If an individual goes ahead and builds, then the deposit counts as part of their payment. However, if the plot is returned then the deposit is retained. It is hoped that this will encourage people to plan better and avoid plots going to those who are not ready to build and who can hold a plot for months when someone else could have been developing it.
The census planned for later this year is postponed due to lack of staff in the policy department. It is now planned to conduct the census around April next year. As the previous census was conducted in April this should give a consistent result.
Livestock and Meat Products Identification and Movement of Cattle regulations were agreed.
The final proposals from the review of FIDC were approved.
The Jury (Amendment) Bill which would broaden the pool from which people can be drawn for jury service was remitted to Legislative Assembly. This Bill aims to address some of the concerns raised around recent jury trials when small businesses and farms were placed under immense pressure when key personnel were called for jury service.
Among several items of AOB the Hon Gavin Short is to replace the Hon W Luxton as lead member on the FIDC board with the Hon. Mike Summers taking on the second MLA position.
We requested that the building of extra public lavatories be given some priority by PWD as the Tourist Board project appeared to have stalled.
We also requested speedy response to a problem that had arisen regarding the employment of LSAs and had been raised for action nearly two months ago.
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