Anguilla's opposition calls a $39 million budget increase 'astronomical'

A supplementary appropriation splits the House over a London office and a resort buyback, with the opposition arguing a hospital should come first.

THE VALLEY. Anguilla's House of Assembly has passed a supplementary budget that its opposition leader calls out of proportion to a small territory's needs. The Bill for Supplementary Appropriation (2026) (No. 2) Act, 2026 was moved on October 9 and debated and passed without amendment on October 13, Anguilla Focus reported on October 20. It raises revised spending for 2026 from 657.63 million Eastern Caribbean dollars to about 697.01 million, an increase of 39.38 million.

The allocations tell the story of the dispute. The package sets aside 9.18 million dollars for fuel-surcharge relief and 2.4 million for overseas medical treatment, both of which the opposition supports. It also commits 16 million dollars to buy the Cinnamon Reef resort from the Anguilla Social Security Board, and 11.8 million in capital toward permanent office premises in the United Kingdom, where the government has accepted a non-binding offer on a London property and says due diligence is continuing.

It is those last two lines, worth 27.8 million dollars combined, that drew the opposition's objection. The opposition leader, Ellis Webster, backed the fuel and medical funding but opposed the resort purchase and the London office, arguing that a modern hospital should come before either. He also noted that the government had already repaid 214 million dollars to the Social Security Board in 2016 for losses tied to the banking crisis, questioning the wisdom of routing more of the board's assets through the public accounts.

"I cannot support this bill as it is written and presented," Webster said, according to Anguilla Focus. "This is not the type of money that can be spent from the public purse overseas when there's so many needs at home." The premier, Cora Richardson Hodge, who also holds the finance portfolio, moved the bill and defended the London premises as a way to strengthen the territory's links to its diaspora and to the United Kingdom, under whose sovereignty Anguilla sits as an overseas territory.

The argument is a familiar one for a small, tourism-dependent territory with a large diaspora and a long list of domestic needs. A permanent London office is a statement about Anguilla's place in the United Kingdom and its reach to the Anguillians who live there. A new hospital is a statement about the people on the island now. The government has chosen to fund the first while promising the second.

The opposition has chosen to make the hospital the test. The bill has passed, and the spending is authorized, so the practical question now is delivery: whether the London property clears due diligence, what the Cinnamon Reef purchase does for the Social Security Board's balance sheet, and whether the fuel relief reaches households before the next bill arrives. The Ledger notes that the account rests on a single local outlet, Anguilla Focus, and will confirm the figures against a second source as the House records become available.