Archive for September 12th, 2010
Jobs to be saved for locals
(CNS): The labour minster said government is backing a private member’s motion to look at making some jobs the preserve of Caymanians only. The day after the premier had publicly berated protectionist attitudes in the country that were driving people and businesses away, his Cabinet colleague stated in the Legislative Assembly last week that government was setting up a committee that would look at which types of professions and specific jobs could be reserved for Caymanians only. Rolston Anglin acknowledged that there would be detractors but, he said, given the levels of Caymanian unemployment and the changing economic fortunes, it was time to look at the issue.
The motion was brought by government backbencher and George Town MLA, Ellio Solomon, who said he knew the importance of diversity and harmonious relationships between foreign workers and locals, but it should not just be politicians’ or the deputy governor’s jobs that were reserved for Caymanians. Government, he said, had a responsibility to find other positions to reserve for the country’s people. He pointed to positions such as the chief immigration officer or the head of the Water Authority as possible posts but added that he wasn’t going to pre-empt what the committee might come up with. He suggested, however, that he expected the jobs would be in the public and private sectors.
He said he believed there were certain jobs that the committee would recommend had to be designated for Caymanians. He told his legislative colleagues that he was only proposing a committee and hoped people would not twist the spirit of the motion.
Dwayne Seymour, government backbench MLA for Bodden Town who seconded the motion, said there were many examples in other countries where the indigenous people were given advantages. He said it should also be the case for Caymanians, reflecting that they were special. He said there were “plots to employ friends and family in jobs Caymanians could do” but he believed if a Caymanian could do a certain job no one else should have it.
Anglin, who announced that government was supporting the motion and would be moving toward establishing the committee, pointed out that, while the subject was likely to cause people to take sides, it needed to be examined. At the risk of accusations of protectionism, Anglin said, the goal was to find out what practical steps would be taken to assist local people. He said employers had a tendency to always want to employ fully trained individuals who were ready to do the work right away rather than face their obligation to train people.
In the past, he said, Caymanians had been able to succeed because of this type of policy and he gave the example of the laws that prohibited work permits for trainee accountants, ensuring Caymanians were trained and then ultimately able to qualify and follow careers in the accountancy profession. He asked members to imagine what might have happened if past legislators had not made those provisions. He said there had been no decisions on which posts would be reserved for Caymanians but this was merely a first step in examining where positions could be reserved to once again help today’s young Caymanians into work.
While Leader of the Opposition Kurt Tibbetts said he and his colleagues supported the spirit of the motion, he wanted to hear more from the government about the proposals and whether it would apply to spouses of Caymanians and how it would work in practice.
Alden McLaughlin also offered some support but warned that the balance between the needs of businesses, both locally as well as foreign owned, to have the most talented staff with the prospects of the wider local population was challenging.
“Not everyone will agree with me but there can be no future for this country that does not include those that are of this country otherwise, what is the point?” McLaughlin asked, agreeing with the spirit of the motion but warned it was not an easy problem to solve otherwise it would have been fixed a log time ago.
He pointed out that the premier always says the country is going to run away business with such protectionist policies but it was an important issue that had to be examined.
The former employment minster pointed out that the main risk to making specific jobs the preserve of Caymanians had to do with numbers. He said it would be difficult to know if there would always be sufficient numbers of Caymanians willing and able to fill any specific jobs designated Caymanian only.
What was needed, he suggested, was to get the immigration system to work better so that each case was properly followed up but he acknowledged that immigration had not really been effective for more than forty years.
The Legislative Assembly was adjourned part way through the debate and is expected to continue next week. Premier McKeeva Bush, who will be giving an address to the country on Tuesday evening about the state of the economy, has not yet contributed to the debate.
Plans to make organ transplants legal underway
(CNS): The government has backed a private member’s motion to begin the process of passing legislation that would allow the removal, storage and use of human organs and tissues in the Cayman Islands. The motion was brought by Ellio Solomon, backbench MLA for George Town, who said that at present the law does not easily facilitate donation either by living or dead donors and the subsequent transplant to patients, even though Cayman has many people in need. Despite warnings from the North Side member that Cayman does not yet have the necessary facilities or expertise to carry out transplants, the Minister for Health said government planned to move towards establishing a law for organ donation.
While local people in need of transplants are on waiting lists in other jurisdictions, there is no way for them to receive transplants from people here or to have the surgery in the Cayman Islands at present. Government will now need to amend a number of laws as well as introduced new legislation and regulation to facilitate the medical procedures in future.
The mover of the motion spoke about the pressing need for legislative change to address the existing medical needs of many people in Cayman and to allow the medical procedures and recovery process to take place here, but Health Minister Mark Scotland revealed another motivating factor for accepting the motion.
“It will also fulfil an undertaking that was given by the government upon signing the agreement for the proposed Cayman Narayana Health University project,” he said. “As members will recall this proposed long term project, which is poised to become the catalyst for the creation of medical tourism as a third pillar of the economy, will provide tertiary care to persons from overseas for much reduced costs and in a timely manner. It is envisioned that a component of the care will be of a transplant nature.”
He said creating this legislation would see the project take another step forward. Scotland said that a committee was being established to examine the need for legislative changes as well as the other needs to facilitate organ transplant. Scotland said that government was examining the possibility of having those who wished to be organ donors indicate their desire on drivers licences, as they do in the US.
The motion was supported by all members in the chamber at the time, but Ezzard Miller warned that there were still problems associated with tissue transplant and its regulation around the world and Cayman had to be careful about facilitating tissue harvesting without proper regulation as the practice was moving from more thoroughly legislated states to those with less regulation.
He also pointed out that Cayman’s medical facilities as well as medical expertise had a long way to go before it was capable of harvesting, storing and transplanting human organs. He agreed that government should introduce a living will and allow local people to donate but he said the procedures should be conducted in other jurisdictions until local medical facilities were equipped to deal with the procedures.
Miller said there may be doctors here who think they can undertake the procedure and they may well be capable of doing so in some circumstances, but he said patients needed to know that back up medical facilities were here for when things went wrong.
(CNS):
(CNS): The manager of a small grocery store in George Town was knocked out by a gunman during an armed robbery late Saturday night (11 September), police said on Sunday morning. George Town detectives are now appealing for witnesses to the incident, which occurred at 22:15 outside the convenience store in the vicinity of Money Gram on Shedden Road. Two men, one armed with a gun, held up the operator of the store as he was leaving. They ordered him to hand over the money and he gave them the bag he was carrying, which contained an undisclosed sum of money, a Blackberry phone and keys. He was then struck on the head by the man with the gun and was unconscious for a short while.