Village councils were also responsible for collecting taxes and fees from residents, as well as for creating and enforcing local by-laws and regulations.
The village councils worked in collaboration with the national government of Antigua and Barbuda to ensure the effective delivery of services to the communities they serve.
[1] Ivor Heath, the UNDP's head, vowed to decentralize the government in the 1980s if his group were to win power.
In order to provide communities a kind of local government and more responsibility over their own concerns, he specifically suggested a system of village councils.
Only Barbuda had local self-government in the late 1980s; the other communities were governed by the Ministry of Home Affairs.