Falklands : Falklands - Summary of Executive Council Meeting 19 August 2010
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 30.08.2010 (Article Archived on 13.09.2010)
MLA’s Jan Cheek, Roger Edwards and myself attended this Executive Council which was fairly lengthy, lasting around four hours.
Summary of Executive Council Meeting 19 August 2010
MLA’s Jan Cheek, Roger Edwards and myself attended this Executive Council which was fairly lengthy, lasting around four hours.
We began by approving works to the area close to FIPASS where FIG is building a proper container park together with the necessary infrastructure and electrical outlets that will allow for the storage of close to 300 containers. This will be a vast improvement in SAAS’s ability to operate their container service and will also provide a much needed piece of shoreside infrastructure to service FIPASS.
We then looked at a paper which reviewed fisheries science and research. The paper was mainly informational and we agreed that there was further work that needed to be carried out in this area.
We approved the printing of a new series of £10 and £20 notes – these new notes will retain the same design as the current notes and are simply needed as replacement stock.
A further paper was approved relating to the production of a commemorative coin to celebrate the 85th birthday of Her Majesty the Queen. This is, of course, subject to Her Majesty’s approval, and is a useful source of income to the FIG.
We also approved the guarantee of the FIMCO overdraft facility which is needed to fund the lengthy negative cash-flow of the company during the year due to the time lag between the company purchasing animals, processing them and shipping them and receipt of cash from sales.
We approved an application for an individual to hold land for the purchase of a house which had already been approved by the Lands Committee and we had a fairly lengthy debate on the delegation of powers to the Environmental Planning Officer for the issuing of licences to shoot Crested Caracara. The heart of the issue here was the delegation of authority and the checks and balances needed to ensure that, whilst we were unanimous that such matters should not be dealt with at Executive Council, we also needed to be sure that such delegation was properly managed. We agreed that regular reports would be made to the Environmental Committee stating not just numbers of licences issued but also the number of birds killed.
From this discussion it was also noted that in fact any elected Executive Council member can place any item on the agenda for Executive Council. I doubt this has occurred often if at all, but it does mean that, in the case of the delegation of powers such as just mentioned, if any Exco Member feels that the system is not working, they are able to speedily place it on the Exco agenda for discussion and debate.
We renewed the abattoir waste disposal licence for a further period of two years and requested that the environmental planning officer be tasked to produce an environmental impact assessment. There will also be close monitoring of the waste site by both the EPO and the veterinary service.
Many will be delighted and many will not be delighted that we approved the publication of the Smoking Prohibition Bill. I am sure that this Bill will be well aired between now and the October Assembly where it will be debated in public and either approved or not.
We noted a paper regarding the published accounts of the Falkland Islands Pension scheme which all members of the scheme will have seen already. The matter in front of us was simply whether or not such reports should be presented to Exco. We are seeking the advice of the Chair of the Fund.
On taxation matters, we approved a paper which simply allows for extra statutory concessions to become law. The aim of this is to simplify and clarify the Taxes Ordinance and it will simply mean that the treatment of a variety of matters by the tax office here which are currently done as a concession outside of the taxation laws will now be incorporated into the law which is how it should be. This is simply good practice and there are no changes to the way in which taxation currently operates.
We agreed that the visa requirement for persons visiting from Taiwan could be waived. This simply means that fishing crews and so on will find it a far more simple process to enter the Falklands. The practical problem of obtaining a visa prior to arriving in the Falklands is now resolved. They are of course still subject to exactly the same immigration laws as before.
We noted with interest the paper giving the 2009/2010 report of the RFIP. This report was approved for publication and the statistics within it make for some interesting reading. The paper following this was a report by the Prisons Advisor following his two visits to the Falklands which was noted. His recommendations cannot be reported as they amount to a security audit of the prison, but we will at some stage be making decisions on what recommendations of his we may act upon.
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