St Helena : St Helena Exco Report (15/06/08)
Submitted by Saint Helena Herald (Juanita Brock) 27.07.2008 (Article Archived on 10.08.2008)
H. E. the Governor Mr Andrew Gurr Tells us what happened during the most recent EXCO meeting.
ExCo Report 15th July 2008
This promised to be a lengthy Executive Council with 13 items on the agenda. All elected ExCo members were present.
It may be helpful for me to clarify the situation with regard to the presentation of papers. I made reference in a previous report to a particular Councillor presenting a paper, and I know that some mistook this for indicating that the paper in question was that Councillor’s own work. Normally a Councillor will introduce a paper that has come to ExCo from the committee that is chaired by that Councillor. So for instance, Councillor Eric Benjamin will introduce most papers that deal with education, Councillor Drabble with health issues and so on. Having said that, all the papers in the first part of this ExCo, which is the public part, were introduced by the Attorney General, as all related to matters legal.
The first was a summary of the legislative programme. This is far more interesting than its name implies. It informed us that over the past few months we have completed legislation on Mutual Bodies, there has been a new Land Planning Bill enacted, the Budget has been approved, there has been enabling legislation for the specific mutualisation of the Bank, and a definition of “Life Partner” has entered our legal system. Currently we are dealing with a New Child Care Ordinance, with Immigration reforms, with the Education Bill, with Financial Services, and with Money Laundering legislation.
There were 24 other areas that have been identified as possibly requiring legislation in the near future and we will shortly be making public some of the matters that we feel need addressing. I indicated to ExCo Councillors that, under normal circumstances, this particular ExCo has another year to run and we should prioritise those subjects that we deem worthy of special attention in this regard.
The second item was to do with the Revision of Laws. This is really the publication of a summary of the total law that is St.Helena specific. It needs doing because over a period of time amendments are made and they need to be consolidated in order to make the law easier to handle. We agreed that this new revision should be published electronically for the time being. If a new Constitution is brought into being next year, then there will be changes required in parts of the law where it relates to that new Constitution, and so a hard copy of the Revision of Laws will only be available after that time.
The third paper was about the testing of motorists for excess alcohol. It was to ensure that the Road Traffic Ordinance is updated so that the police are able to apply the most modern equipment for measuring breath alcohol content. This was approved.
The next Memorandum was actually an Airport Development Order. The Airport Development Ordinance of 2006 sets out a process for the designation of parcels of land as being an Airport Development Area. Part of that process is the agreement of the owner of the land. This particular Order has been agreed by the owner, and all the other safeguards had been met. Thus the Order was agreed.
We then moved on to consider those items that were closed to the public. The first three being Immigrant’s Landholding Licences. All of these were agreed. One was for a married couple and one for a small business. Possibly the most significant was the approval of the transfer of land from the French Consul to the French government. This particular land is 1.67 acres around the Briars and is being transferred in order to guarantee visitor’s access to the Briars.
We then turned to a paper on the subject of the arrangements for the Revision of Income Related Benefits. Most of you will remember that we had discussed this subject on 24th June and had sought further information regarding the application or removal of the “disregard” (where earnings up to a certain level are disregarded when calculating benefit). We had also sought to find a way of providing specific help to that vulnerable section of the community where there is a family unit with only one wage earner.
The removal of the “disregard” would mean that there would be no financial incentive for those on Income Related Benefit to earn any wages, and so it was proposed in this paper that the “disregard” should be replaced by a personal allowance of £20 for a single person and £30 for a couple. This would be applied on top of the new IRB of £40 per week for a single person and £60 per week for a couple.
Thus a single person in receipt of a wage of £20 per week could keep all of it without reducing benefit, but beyond that level benefit would be reduced. Similarly a couple receiving benefit would have a maximum total income of £90 per week before benefit would be reduced. This is a significant improvement on the present arrangement and was recommended and approved.
In addition, a special campaign to identify the single earner families in our society has been mounted. It is the intention to pay the electricity standing charge for such families for the current year; however there have been few applicants thus far.
Executive Council was particularly aware of the amount of work committed to this subject by both Ann Muir and Ronald Coleman, and we express our gratitude to them.
It had been agreed at the ExCo on 4th July that a satisfactory revision to the benefit situation would trigger the proposed rise in the electricity tariffs. However I was not prepared to proceed directly on that, as there were some valid concerns raised by Honourable Members surrounding certain discrepancies in the data that had been provided. This is hardly surprising as it is a complex situation and has been complicated further by the fact that the revision last December actually reduced the payment for electricity at a time when the cost was soaring. I have no doubt that a substantial rise will still occur, but it is essential that our judgement on this matter is founded on information that is consistent and understood by all concerned. As we have two more Executive Councils this week, we will be looking at the figures again in the very near future.
The next item was strongly related to the previous discussion as it was a memorandum on Fuel Prices, and it was introduced by the Financial Secretary. I have already spoken to you on this subject and do not wish to emphasise what is bad news for us all. Indeed both
your government and Solomons (who operate the fuel depot), have agreed that we will not receive any more money as a result of this rise. We will both reduce the percentage of turnover that represents our contribution from the supply of fuel, and that goes a small way to mitigating against what is a substantial rise.
No politician or Governor likes to agree to such increases, but we felt that in the international circumstances prevailing, we have no alternative. Solomons will be making an announcement as to the
amount and timing of the increase.
The meeting finished around 1 pm.
AMG
15th July 2008
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