Governor starts cyber space journal

(CNS): Sevens months before he is due to leave the islands, Governor Stuart Jack has announced that he has started a blog, which he says is an attempt to communicate more and an opportunity for people to tell him what they think. “From time to time there are things I want to say to the people of the Cayman Islands which do not always justify a formal press statement,” Jack said in his blog. “I cannot be on the talk shows all the time. Sometimes I have had complaints that the Governor was not communicating with the community frequently enough.”

He also suggested that people both here and further afield would like to have a better idea what a governor gets up to and thinks, and as a result he would be updating his blog once or twice a week.

The governor’s blog is located on the governor’s office website and has a comment box for readers to submit their thoughts. In his first entry he talks about the trip he and his wife, Mariko, took to South America, the newly appointed governor, Duncan Taylor, and the forthcoming elections and referendum on Wednesday.

During his trip to South America he said he saw that each of the countries had its own strengths and its own problems, many of them around economic difficulties, poverty and crime. He said that while the Cayman Islands has problems we must keep things in perspective. “Compared with most other countries in the Western Hemisphere we remain blessed,” he wrote. “This is still one of the safest places to live in or visit that this seasoned traveller has known,” he said.

He said Cayman was lucky to get Duncan Taylor as he has an extensive knowledge of the Caribbean. “His style will not be exactly the same as mine, but I do not expect any radical changes in the policies he pursues or the FCO wants him to pursue, for example on good governance,” Jack wrote.

“Anyway Cayman has still got me – and Mariko — for the next seven months. A journalist recently asked me if, now that my successor had been named, I was winding down. While it is perfectly fair for someone to ask that question, the very suggestion that I am winding down is more likely to wind me up!”

He said he was determined to push ahead with the work, including the problems in the police force, improving parole arrangements, efforts to modernise government and to start implementing a new Constitution. He then asked everyone entitled to vote to use the last few days to study the text and take part in the referendum, and told voters to look for candidates in the general election who think seriously about the whole country and all its people not just their constituency and supporters.

He said Cayman needed to think hard about the future as a result of the current economic uncertainty and climate change, which he said was a major challenge for small, low lying islands.