Archive for June 10th, 2009
Broken main cuts water in eastern districts
(CNS): UPDATED 10:00 am.– The Water Authority has said that it is working diligently to complete repairs on a broken water main in Bodden Town area, located in the vicinity of Mostyn’s Gas Station which has caused the supply to be cut tin the area between Manse Road and the cemetery. Water has now been restored to all customers east of the cemetery, but they may experience low pressure while repairs continue. The authority said that the water is likely to remain off for the affected customers for approximately four hours while repairs take place and apologized for the inconvenience.
Journalist pushes for GIS salary details under FOI
(CNS): The office of the Information Commissioner said yesterday that Jennifer Dilbert is convening her first written hearing to determine whether Government Information Services (GIS) should reveal the exact salary, bonuses and expense detail of its staff to a journalist from the Compass. The request has been denied by GIS stating that it would be “unreasonable disclosure of personal information".
CNS contacted Fuller enquiry over the motivation for his request who forwarded a copy of an articel published in the Caymanian Compass in May which indicated that he had made requests regarding a number of salaries not least those of Members of the Legislative Assembly. However it is not clear why GIS salary details had been requested or if the challenge had been over all the declined requests, depite the apparent parametres of the hearing.
More information on the hearing can be found on the Information Commissioner’s website at www.infocomm.ky
Bush creates tax treaty team
(CNS): A new negotiating team has been established by Leader of Government Business McKeeva Bush to deal with matters relating to various tax information agreements (TIA) to get Cayman on the OECD’s ‘white list’. “We need to move forward expeditiously with these agreements to preserve our good reputation as a transparent jurisdiction which upholds high international standards of cooperation,” said Bush on Tuesday.
The requirement laid out by the OECD, as agreed at the G20 meeting in April, is that a jurisdiction should have a minimum of 12 bi-lateral tax agreements in order to be considered transparent enough to make the ‘white list’. Cayman currently has eight as well as a uni-lateral mechanism. The team created by Bush as the Minister of finance has cabinet approval to negotiate the necessary extra four that will meet the OECD standard. This week Bermuda signed its 12th agreement and was immediately prommoted to the white list.
“The intent is to ensure that the Cayman Islands meets and exceeds the minimum number of tax cooperation arrangements to enable elevation of the Cayman Islands to the OECD/G20 ‘white list’,” Bush added.
The TIA Negotiation Team will continue negotiations, which Bush said were already at an advanced stage, and conclude for final approval by cabinet tax information agreements with various countries. “The TIA Negotiation Team will now move these negotiations forward to signing as well as to pursue additional TIAs with other countries.”
The pace of signing agreements will be affected by the procedures of the country with which Cayman is seeking agreements, but Bush said he was confident that the Cayman Islands would be off the OECD ‘grey list’ within the new few months.
He added that the Cayman Islands will be signing an agreement with the United Kingdom next week, which will put the number of agreements held by the Cayman Islands at nine. The delegation to Europe will be led by the leader of government business and Governor Stuart Jack.
The TIA team is lead by Chief Secretary George McCarthy and includes the Attorney General Sam Bulgin, Financial Secretary Kenneth Jefferson, Senior Assistant Secretary Michelle Bahadur (Secretary), Managing Director, Cayman Islands Monetary Authority Cindy Scotland, CIMA Deputy Managing Director Langston Sibblies, CIFSA Chair Anthony Travers, and Paul Byles.