The two items, one on taxes, and the second on the details of an agreed £1.5m. loan from the States of Guernsey, had both been promised as late submissions when the original agenda was published before Christmas.
P&F said the report on the loan would now be brought to an extraordinary meeting of Chief Pleas, the date of which would be confirmed in due course.
Prior to this, conseillers will be offered a briefing on the details of the loan facility.
Conseiller Frank Makepeace was frustrated at the delay, and said the whole process had been a shambles from start to finish.
‘From the day the Chief Pleas papers were issued on 22 December up until the withdrawal of the proposition yesterday, it’s been clear to me that no terms and conditions for the loan had been drafted,’ he said.
He said this had been confirmed in an email response from the deputy chair of P&F, Natalie Tighe.
The loan from Guernsey is intended to pay for the compulsory purchase of Sark Electricity Limited, which Chief Pleas hope will be completed by September.
An independent valuer was appointed in December to officially value the island power company, with the method and basis of the valuation due to be decided by the island’s Seneschal’s Court in the very near future.
‘The question is why would the P&F committee submit the proposal when it knew the supporting documents weren’t ready?’ said Conseiller Makepeace. ‘My guess is that they hurriedly submitted the papers possibly due to pressure from Guernsey in the hope that perhaps the law officers could draft the conditions before the meeting next week. I would like to think that determined pressure from myself has contributed to the cancellation of this proposal to a later date.’
He added that he was also concerned regarding the wording in the statement on the cancellation that offered conseillers a ‘briefing’ on the loan.
‘This to me is alarming,’ he said. ‘As it suggests that no hard copy details of the loan will be given to conseillers, just a verbal description of the terms and conditions.’
P&F said that the tax paper, which addressed propositions passed by Chief Pleas at its midsummer meeting in 2024, rather than any new policy changes, would be brought to a future meeting of Chief Pleas.