St Helena : ST HELENA ExCO Report 12th February 2008
Submitted by Saint Helena Herald (Juanita Brock) 21.02.2008 (Article Archived on 06.03.2008)
This week’s EXCO was the longest one I have chaired. There were 8 papers in all, a few more than usual, and some of the issues were worthy of lengthy deliberation.
ST HELENA ExCO Report 12th February 2008
This week’s EXCO was the longest one I have chaired. There were 8 papers in all, a few more than usual, and some of the issues were worthy of lengthy deliberation.
The first Paper in the public part of the meeting was the introduction of a concept to be known as the Airport Development Order. This authorises the Governor in Council to designate land as an Airport Development Area. The idea is to simplify the whole process of having to approve of detailed plans related to the many aspects of construction that will take place on the airport site over the next few years. The recommendations take care of all the necessary controls relating to the environment and such like and I accepted the advice that this matter should now move to public consultation.
The second Paper was endorsed straight away as being sensible, and that was to remove the ban on the importation of live animals, meat and milk from the UK now that the threat from foot and mouth disease there has passed.
The third Paper was one that follows logically from earlier legislation to do with our ability here to form Mutual Societies. It has always been intended that the Bank of St. Helena should become such a society. In other words it will be owned by the users of its services. At present the Governor appoints the Board of the Bank, but in future, when this legislation goes through, those of you who use the bank will have a direct say in who is on the Board. It is a strange quirk of the situation we are in that the Bank has no owner at present; but before you all volunteer to step into that space, it has long been our intention to clear up the position by adopting mutuality. There are changes in the Banking Ordinance and the Bank of St. Helena Ordinance that are now required to enable all this to happen. I was happy to see this proposal pass through to public consultation.
Finally in the public section there was a Paper tidying up the present situation with regard to the distinction between light and heavy vehicles. By passing this amendment to the Road Traffic Regulations, we are establishing a consistency in that Licence Fees and Driving Licence Vehicle Groups will be the same. The cut off point between the two will be 5,000lbs weight. We do not have a weighbridge, but we measure from net weight as published by the manufacturer of the vehicle.
We bid the single member of the public a fond farewell at this point and moved to consider proposals from the Acting Financial Secretary that are by way of preparation for the forthcoming budget. There were two papers involved in this discussion and the core of the issue was whether we needed to raise more revenue, and could do so by raising taxes in some areas, and whether we could afford to give anything away by lowering taxes in others. We were concerned that if all we were doing was fiddling with the tax system it would be better to leave it alone. Nevertheless I asked Councillors to consider the various options that may be open to us in trying to create a society that is deemed to be fair in the way that what wealth we have, is distributed. Sometimes it is possible to use the taxation system to help those who may need it most in a manner that is fair to all.
We were unable to reach any specific conclusions but we did agree to meet again for further consideration later this week. There were three principles outlined that were felt to be helpful:
Ø We should aim for a balanced budget and not overspend,
Ø We should only consider any increase in tax in areas that involved discretionary spending and might be considered injurious to health and wellbeing and,
Ø Any tax reduction should have an equal impact throughout society. In other words it should be based on a sum of money rather than a percentage, so that the worse off received just as much benefit as those who are better placed.
The next Paper has been round the houses a bit, (well round the hotel actually). It was the reintroduction of approval of a landholding licence for Ms Hazel Wilmot to enable her to complete her transaction in buying the Consulate Hotel. I say “round the houses” because a small error in the last submission had required the re-gazetting of this situation. No objections have been received, and Councillors were happy to recommend the granting of the licence.
The final Paper was entitled SHDA Project (Airport Construction and Opening Phase), and dealt with the fact that the current SHDA Expansion Project ends on 31st March this year. It is being replaced by a new project where the focus of much of our development will be around the preparation for the airport. DFID is pouring over £1.5m in to this over the next five years and this is a most welcome continuation of Development Aid. We in SHG will continue to contribute to SHDA staffing and overhead costs.
The Councillors will be seeing a lot of each other and senior officials over the next few days as we tackle the challenge of the budget and hold more than usual EXCOs and Informal LEGCOs. The issues are often complex, and today’s meeting was no exception. Nevertheless it was good humoured and real progress was made.
I have mentioned the airport several times in this report, and you will have noticed that we are assuming that the news, when it comes in late March or early April, will be positive. That particular strategy shows us to be prudent rather than having any awareness of how the bidding process is progressing. I have no reason to be pessimistic and remain optimistic. Sharon Wainwright will return to us this week – she has been fully involved with the team in DFID that has been studying the bids and submitting them to Ministers.
Also arriving this week will be the new Financial Secretary – Virginia Grace. It is asking a lot from her, but she will have the task of presenting the budget to Legco on 14th March. I must thank Christine Turpin for the sterling work she has done in her “Acting” role since the departure of Linda Clemett.
Christine is skilful and resilient and her work is much appreciated. I am sure that Virginia and Christine working together will provide us with a very strong team.
AMG
12th February 2008
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