Archive for April, 2009

‘Global warming is a fact’

(CNS): As a candidate for the Sister Islands in 2005, Maxine McCoy-Moore had used her two minute spot on Radio Cayman to say that the Cayman Islands must be prepared for an increase in hurricanes, she told supporters at a meeting Tuesday night, and said the three hurricanes that hit the Sister Islands last year – Gustav, Ike and Paloma – proved her right. “Global warming is a fact,” she said. “Six months every year is Hurricane season. Paloma is a drop in the bucket of what can happen.”

Speaking to a small crowd at Scotts Dock in the West End of Cayman Brac, McCoy-Moore warned, “Don’t think that won’t happen again. We need more hurricane shelters and we need a better system for bringing back Brackers living on Grand Cayman that want to come home.”

The independent candidate, who has run three times unsuccessfully, spoke out strongly about environmental issues and the lack of recycling, noting how high the landfill on the south side of Cayman Brac is getting. She said that metal and plastic could be sold to other countries for recycling, and other items such as glass bottles, cans and batteries could also be recycled.

Slamming plans for a new landfill on the Bluff, she noted the disaster around the landfill after Paloma, and asked what would happen if a hurricane came and the garbage dump was on the Bluff – there would be garbage everywhere, she suggested.

“I was told by the head man in Grand Cayman they he could guarantee that the dump would not leak. It would have to be God himself to tell me that before I believe it,” McCoy-Moore said, stressing her fears that having the landfill at that location would destroy the water table.

Turing to Agriculture, she said she would work “hand in hand” with the government to ensure that every farmer, “big or small”, received financial aid. Noting that the Brac was once self-sustaining, she asked why government was only assisting farmers in Grand Cayman and said it should buy more land for agriculture.

“I notice the PWD have no strict supervision. I see 5, 10 12 people with only one working and the rest sitting down getting paid to do nothing when we have a lot of work here that needs to be done,” McCoy-Moore said, adding, “The PWD crew might not like me saying this." But, she said, "It’s not just Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. I also see this in Grand Cayman,” and thought there was a need for opportunities for these workers to advance themselves."

Education was a constant theme in the candidate’s address, and she noted that many of the high school graduates had problems filling out a simple application form on their own. “One of the biggest problems is that some teachers are only here for the money. We need to scrutinize teachers and get dedicated teachers like we had years ago,” she said. “The schools are well-equipped but if students don’t want to study the teachers let them do what they want….We have remarkable children but they need training so they know how to live.”

Also on the subject of opportunities for the young, she said she would not tolerate the practice of retiring civil servants and hiring them back into the system, but said she wanted to increase the retirement age to 70, so long as the worker could get a medical certificate to prove that he or she could do the job. “Why should they be forced to retire at 60?” she asked.

Not everyone was given the opportunity to move on to further education, stated McCoy-Moore and said she wanted to set up a vocational training school on the Brac so that every child who graduated from high school would have no reason to move to Grand cayman unless they wanted to. “Most have to go to Grand Cayman to survive, but they do not know how to exist outside Cayman Brac.” She said students that were given full scholarships to overseas colleges “cannot adjust to life in the US or the UK and end up back on the Brac struggling to find work.”

“Everyone talks about the high cost of living in Grand Cayman,” the candidate said, but noted that on the Brac the amount that people pay for goods is double and on Little Cayman it is triple. “This has to be curtailed. The cost of living should not be so high, and is even worse since Paloma.”

On the Sister Islands economy, she said the stamp duty had been cut on the Brac but that didn’t extend to Cayman Brackers living on Little Cayman, and she also proposed that the cuts should be for Caymanians only. She said foreigners buy land cheaply, build a house themselves and then “put up a for sale sign and go home with a pocketful of money.”

The candidate said she has been asking “since Truman Bodden’s day through McKeeva Bush’s day to Kurt Tibbetts’ day” why overseas banks could be located on Cayman Brac, but had still not received an answer. The Bluff is the perfect place for a small financial services centre, she said and pointed out that after Hurricane Ivan the financial services took a downward turn when a lot of workers in the industry went to other jurisdictions

“Every week I see the barge leave fully loaded with aggregate to go to Grand Cayman. So why are Brackers still driving over potholes?” she asked, and wanted to know why the Lighthouse Road was still not paved.

Turning to immigration, she thought the laws "sell out" the three islands. She said that employers spend a lot of money hiring someone, including work permit fees, and sometimes even travel expenses for them to get here. But then, she said, even if that employer finds that the employee is doing something illegal, immigration still allows them to go and work with another employer. She said foreign workers say they have a lot of qualifications – “some do and some don’t”. There are 1500 foreign people in the Cayman Islands that don’t have a job, she said. This breeds crime and they should be sent home, she believed.

All the international marketing for the Cayman Islands portrays “the Cayman Islands” as Grand Cayman, and McCoy-Moore said it should be emphasized that we are three Cayman Islands. Rock climbing should be promoted for the Brac and she also wants to bring the cruise ship industryto the Brac (which has not been very sucessful so far) by either continuing to build the Scotts Dock or extending the Creek Dock.

She proposed improving the airport – there was no reason why Cayman Airways should be the only airline to fly into the Brac, she said. Furthermore, she noted the high prices of travel to the Sister Islands, which could be almost as much as getting to Grand Cayman, even from far away places such as Alaska.

We know from watching CNN and the BBC that US President Barack Obama will be lifting the US travel embargo on Cuba, she said, saying that it was a beautiful island that offered way more than the Cayman Islands – “cheap accommodation, cheap taxis and crime free”.

On the subject of crime, she said, “I do not know why people in Grand Cayman changed and so hate one another. Hate has taken over the people down there. We do not need to extend that to the people up here.”

The two incumbents cannot work together and one of them needed to be changed, McCoy-Moore said, promising, “You will not be getting a ‘yes’ woman. I will stand up for what is right and what is fair for the Sister Islands.”

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PPM starts bid for 2nd term

(CNS): Following the opening of the campaign for the party faithful on Saturday night at Pedro St James, the PPM took to the open campaign road on Tuesday night with its national rally in George Town. Laying claim to a number of achievements during their 4 year term, each of the candidates spoke to the audience giving them a taste of the key campaign issues. The party also produced a reported card entitled "From promise to performance", comparing the election pledges made in the 2005 manifesto to the achievements during its administration.

In an orchestrated and managed performance that opened with a video diary, all ten candidates alighted from the ‘PPM bus’ through the cheering crowd to the podium. In a break from the usual party political procedures, Leader of the PPM and Government Business Kurt Tibbetts spoke first and acted as Master of Ceremonies. Delivering a variation on his state of the nation speech from Saturday night, he touched on the economy, spending, financial services and a number of other issues. He then introduced each of the ten members of the PPM team for the general election 2009, all but one already holding a seat, as they came to the podium to deliver their first campaign calls, which included the party slogan “Don’t stop the progress".

Joey Ebanks, the only non-incumbent, who is running in the district of North Side, delivered a short but animated speech to wide applause asking the people to return the ten PPM candidates to office on 20 May. Criticising his opponent Ezzard Miller for aligning himself with the UDP while saying he was independent, he said “You can’t come out and declare yourself as an independent candidate and then in the same breathe say if elected that you will form a government with McKeeva Bush and remain independent, “ and accused him of lying and accepting his challenge of open debate anytime on any issue but in the middle of the street where everyone could see.

Arden McLean, with a considerable majority in his constituency and described by his colleagues as "Action Man", got the crowd going as he yelled about the achievements of the government he had served in and lauded the lack of corruption in the administration. He said the UDP might be big on talking the talk but were not so good at walking the walk. He asked the critics who said the PPM government had spent too much money to name the projects that they would not have developed. Of the 30 projects he had completed, he said he would challenge his opponent in East End to say which one he would not have done.

Anthony Eden another candidate who is, in terms of numbers, holding a safe seat, also lauded the achievements of his colleagues and in particular McLean for the East-West arterial road, which he said had put an end to his traffic misery. He said the PPM worked well together as a team and met most of their campaign promises from 2005.

Introducing Charles Clifford to the podium, the party leader noted that he was the man who was facing the most criticism from the UDP but that he could handle it. Coming to the podium, it was clear that Clifford would be focusing on issues of corruption that had formed a key element in the last campaign and said it came as no surprise, given what had happened, that he would be the primary target, but he said the more they licked him the more votes he would get. “If this country had not changed course in 2005 we could be where the Turks and Caicos Islands are today,” he warned. “But you the people understood that we need to change course.”

Lucille Seymour, now the sole female PPM candidate, delivered an amusing introduction and noted that it takes a real woman to handle nine men. She lauded the work the government had done for young people and said the sports development programme in the last four years was the most comprehensive in Cayman’s history. McLaughlin took time to set the record straight following misleading comments from Juliana O’Connor-Connolly the previous evening but then went to battle with his UDP adversaries.

He said that he had wanted to talk about was the economy as the PPM was fully aware of what needed to be done to manage the economy going forward and to deal with the issues regarding the financial services. He said that Jonathan Piercy, the young candidate that the UDP was pushing as a financial expert, was not necessarily all that knowledgeable. “What Jonathan Piercy knows about the wider financial services industry can be written on the back of a postage stamp and still leave room for what McKeeva knows,” he said.

He added that it was not the time to elect inexperienced politicians, and though the George Town team comprised good decent young people, this was not the time to learn on the job and they were greenhorns being led by a bumbling old man. The issue, McLaughlin noted, was that Bush had always struggled to work with anyone, and therefore could not bring stability. He said from Benson to Jefferson to Truman and down to Kurt, he had never been able to work with others. “In his 3.5 years of government he had three cabinet changes,” added McLaughlin who said the country could not risk that instability.

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Gomez warns against election sabotage

(CNS): Although the suspected sabotage of one candidates poster’s in Bodden Town turned out to be an April fool’s joke, Supervisor of Elections Kearney Gomez has urged candidates to peak out against any deliberate damage to campaign posters following reports made to the Election’s office. He said there may be legal consequences, as was pointed out in 2005 after an incident of vandalism during that campaign when a UDP poster was sprayed with red paint.

Although no specific section of the Elections Law appears to deal with such a problem, there is a criminal offence known as destroying or damaging property. Election posters, billboard, banners and other such materials are the property of the candidate or the party or group. As a result Gomez said a charge of damage to property could be brought under the Penal Code. Depending on the circumstances, a charge might be brought under other laws dealing with nuisance as well.

Damage to or destruction of property is a serious offence, which can be dealt with in either the Summary Court or Grand Court. Because the property pertains to general elections, there is the possibility that this aspect could be put forward as an aggravating feature, Gomez noted.

The penalty on conviction for damage or destruction of property is a fine of up to $10,000 and imprisonment up to ten years. Damaging or destroying property by setting fire to it is even more serious and would be charged as arson.

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