Opposition member Haydn Hughes has accused the government of using funds earmarked for the expansion of the government’s fleet to purchase cars for ministers.
Approximately EC$2 million was allocated in his past administration’s 2025 Budget “to address critical operational needs across the public service”, he said in a statement on 10 June.
The former infrastructure minister said the high school’s technical campus, the Department of Water Services, the Royal Anguilla Police Force and public schools had been among the priorities.
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Hughes’ comments followed a Klass FM radio interview on 8 June featuring education minister Shellya Rogers-Webster during which she said new ministerial cars were earmarked in the 2025 Budget.
She told listeners that two cars were purchased in the early stages for herself and Evans McNiel Rogers, senior ministerial advisor for health, neither of whom had a working official vehicle at the time.
Later, additional vehicles for the other ministers, which cost between US$20,000 to $30,000, were purchased and arrived in Anguilla in January before being issued just last week.
Rogers-Webster argued that the cost of the cars was much lower than those issued to ministers in the Cayman Islands or the Turks and Caicos Islands.
“What’s amazing to me is that we don’t bat an eye when the governor receives a new vehicle, but for some reason elected officials are not supposed to have vehicles,” she said.
In Hughes’ response, he said ministerial cars were not intended as the priority and that some of those purchased cost more than the vehicles intended for frontline public services.
“More troubling still, many of the ageing and dilapidated vehicles that the funding was meant to replace remain in operation today,” he said.
The opposition member also questioned why the administration had prioritised vehicles for ministers while delaying certain infrastructure projects and cost of living initiatives.
“If the government believes purchasing new ministerial vehicles was the correct decision, then it should defend that decision on its merits,” he said.
“What it should not do is attempt to hide behind the previous administration in an effort to escape accountability for choices it made itself.”
Watch Hughes’ address in full below:
