Falklands : Falklands General Purposes Committee Report (02/06/08)
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 05.06.2008 (Article Archived on 19.06.2008)
Cllr Mike Summers updated the media on this most important committee meeting.
GENERAL PURPOSES COMMITTEE REPORT (02/06/08)
By J. Brock (FINN)
A meeting of General purposes Committee took place prior to the Meeting of Legislative council on 28 May 2008. On Monday, 02 June Cllr Mike Summers gave a briefing to the media on what happened at that meeting.
Agenda:
- Which Councillor will attend Memorials?
- Building houses on land adjacent to navigation lights
- Which Councillor will attend the UK Overseas Territories Forum in the Cayman Islands
- Constitutional Acceptance
- FIG delegate to EU Overseas Territories Conference in Reunion Island
- Agenda for the Overseas Territories Consultative Council for October
- Possible interactive link to the re-vamped Leg-co site
Monthly Meetings:
- 01 May 2008 with the Falkland Islands Chamber of Commerce
- 02 May 2008 – A meeting on the Constitution
- 06 May 2008 – A visit to the Stanley Dairy
- 13 may 2008 – A day with Senior Heads of Department and Councillors to discuss the shape and size of Government
- 20 May 2008 – An internal meeting to discuss BFBS
- 26 to 30 May 2008 – Budget Meetings
Cayman Islands:
The discussion will be on Financial Regulation and Financial Services at this meeting in Cayman.
Leg-co Website:
The Clerk of Councils, Ms Claudette Anderson is constructing a website for Legislative Council. One of the features is an interactive facility that will be for local users only. It is thought that opening the interactive portion of the site to international users would lay it open to abuse.
In a related discussion Councillors felt that publishing online only would disenfranchise people who did not have internet access.
In an answer to a question by FINN Cllr Summers said that while there were some security issues, it was worth raising at the next relevant meeting.
The Draft Constitution:
An agreement has been struck with Meg Munn about the remaining issues. After one clarification a revised draft has been received.. The revised draft will be published. After the publication the draft will go through the following stages:
- Seeing that Ian Hendry’s draft is here the consultative process will begin in a few days.
- Councillors will have a look at it to ensure they fully understand the draft
- The draft will go through a series of public meetings and there will be a period of time allotted for the public to responds.
- Leg-co will adopt the draft and it then
- Will go to the Privy Council in the UK for final approval
- The new Constitution should be in place by 1 January 2009.
- In the near future there will be a list of dates issued to tell people when public meetings about the Constitution will take place.
Cllr Summers said that there is nothing in the draft that could be considered to be controversial and there is nothing of a major nature that Councillors are aware of.
Councillors Attendance at Parades:
Cllr Summers said that despite some people’s opinions the Falklands are going to carry on having parades. Cllr Robertson will lay a wreath for Remembrance Sunday and Cllr Stevens will lay a wreath at the Battle Day Ceremony. Cllr Summers said that if people didn’t want parades, they wouldn’t bother to come along. Attendance has increased since last November’s Pilgrimage.
Leading Lights:
It had been policy not to do any building around the navigation lights across from the Narrows. It was decided that it would not be a problem to build in this area and Manfred Keenleyside has been tasked to come up a scheme to allow for either/or government houses or private home development.
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