St Helena : St. Helena Executive Council Report (29.01.08)
Submitted by Saint Helena Herald (Juanita Brock) 04.02.2008 (Article Archived on 18.02.2008)
This week, someone said to me that they did not know the difference between LEGCO and EXCO. I felt it might be helpful to start with that and see if I can make it clear.
ExCo Report 29th January 2008
This week, someone said to me that they did not know the difference between LEGCO and EXCO. I felt it might be helpful to start with that and see if I can make it clear.
LEGCO stands for Legislative Council and consists of all 12 elected Members and is chaired by a speaker. The Chief Secretary and the Financial Secretary are also Members and the Attorney General attends. It meets in public and is able to actually create law by passing legislation. It is broadcast live and there is opportunity for questions to be asked and the new innovation of the adjournment debate allows any Councillor to say what they wish to.
EXCO stands for Executive Council, is chaired by the Governor and at present consists of the Chairmen of the five Committees, who are elected from all the LEGCO Members. The Chief Secretary, the Financial Secretary and the Attorney General also attend. EXCO generally has two parts – the first the public is allowed to and the second is understandably in private.
EXCO is there to give formal advice to the Governor and it meets fortnightly. Generally speaking all the EXCO papers are distributed to all the Councillors so that those who are not on EXCO have the chance to speak to their colleagues on EXCO before a particular meeting. This is now happening.
This particular EXCO started by examining a Memorandum from the Attorney General entitled the “Interpretation (Amendment) Bill. The Memorandum dealt with the issue of providing a legally consistent definition that could apply to unmarried couples who are permanent partners. Under the present situation the word “spouse” refers to a conventional marriage. It is proposed to introduce a new term “life partner” that does not discriminate on grounds of gender or sexuality. The Honourable Members advised that they were content to see this clarification.
The next paper was to do with the thorny issue of whether public servants should be able to stand for Council and if so, what rules would apply especially in the areas of pension and possible return to work. It had previously been agreed to consider this point at this midway time in the life of the Council. Brian Isaac declared an interest prior to the discussion. We all felt that this issue is particularly difficult, one of the main problems being the inevitable inconsistency between those working in the private sector and those in the civil service.
Few of our private sector companies could afford to release a key employee for 4 years with a guarantee to take them back, and so the playing field is not at all level. Nevertheless we all wanted to create a situation where nobody would be precluded from standing on the grounds of their present occupation. Thankfully we have time to try and resolve this issue and any decision on it was deferred until closer to the next election.
Then we moved on to that part of the meeting where the public are excluded. Our first consideration was to approve the annual licence of the fish canning operation at Rupert’s Bay. There are some recommendations regarding improvements in the administration of the plant that will require attention during the first three months of the coming year, but Members were happy to advise that we proceed on the basis that these will be attended to.
The next paper was the one that generated the longest debate as it is an issue that is dear to the hearts of all of us. If we don’t actually travel on the RMS, we all eat food and use goods that arrive in her well appointed cargo space. The fact is that the price of oil has been rising unremittingly now for a long time and the cost of operating the vessel has risen to reflect that.
However, in spite of the “bunkering surcharge” the income has failed to keep pace with that rise. Bunkering is the term used to describe the refuelling of a ship and if the world price of oil remains at its present high level, there will be enormous pressure on the accounts of St. Helena Line that run the ship for us. The Councillors were all concerned that they should be involved in any decision on this issue, even though constitutionally it is a “special power” of the Governor. With that in mind I undertook to organise a seminar in the form of an Information LECGO that would deal with the operational, financial and organisational issues surrounding the running of the RMS. We all agreed that we must examine every factor carefully before any judgement can be made, and so we will be doing that in the near future.
It was particularly helpful that the LEGCO only Councillors had been able to discuss this issue last Friday, and we took due note of their written and reported views.
The meeting finished around 11.40.
AMG
29th January 2008
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