Archive for June, 2009
Kayaking for literacy in the Solomon Islands
(CNS): A Cayman Islands resident and a visitor from Australia have decided to endure intense pain, risk dehydration and sunstroke, and become mentally and physically drained by paddling more than 100km around Grand Cayman in a kayak on the 27 and 28 June in order to raise funds for an adult literacy progamme in the Solomon Islands. Kent Pearce, who works on Grand Cayman for the Butterfield Fulcrum Group, and Simon Davis are members of Australian charity, Pain for Gain, which raises money for worthy causes by competing in extreme sporting events that they are totally unsuited for.
Funds raised through the event will go towards Basic Adult Self Education (BASE), a school on located just outside Honiara, the capital city of the Solomon Islands on the island of Guadalcanal, a 2,510 square mile island with a population of just over 100,000. BASE was started in 1992 by Father Niall (above), an Irish priest who has been in the Solomon Islands since the 60s, and is now assisted by Sister Maureen, a New Zealand nun.
Adult illiteracy is a widespread problem in the Solomon Islands and many adults cannot find paid work because they can’t read and parents can’t teach their children how to read. The concept of BASE is to teach basic reading skills to illiterate adults and young people who can no longer afford to go to school. The belief is that by teaching parents this in turn will increase child literacy. According to Pain for Gain, because of its popularity, the current school is at full capacity and students are being turned away every week, so BASE is now looking to expand and wants to build classrooms so that they can run their course in outlying villages. (Left: entrance to Vatukola Village)
A local village called Vatukola has donated land in which to build a learning facility, and it is the goal of Pain for Gain to raise the funds to build a classroom on this land. The total cost for the project is USD$6,000 and the two men hope to raise sufficient funds from the Paddle around Cayman fundraiser to make this project a success.
“I was in the Solomons in February and saw firsthand the amazing things that the BASE program is achieving,” Davis, the Pain for Gain chair, said. “The current school, which is run by Father Niall and Sister Maureen, fits 25 students a day. However this limited only by the size of the school, not by demand. The new classroom that we are fundraising to build in Vatikola village will fit an estimated 20 extra students as well extending the outreach of the BASE program.” According to Davis, the BASE program has helped thousands of adults , aged 16 and above, since it opened. “I saw a few students in their 50s attending the course and learning to read! It was inspirational,” he said.
Father Niall and Sister Maureen will continue to teach at the original centre, while Canute, a former student, and will be the teacher of the new centre that will be built in Vatukola (right). “Father Niall and Sister Maureen are keen to have the local Solomon Islanders teaching themselves and becoming independent. This is one of the reasons I was so impressed by this project. Once this new classroom
is running successfully they will look at building new classrooms in other villages to address the widespread problem of adult illiteracy.”
Visit www.painforgain.com for more on the charity, or click the ad on CNS to find out more about the “Paddle around Cayman” fundraiser.
Swiss make tax deal with US
(CNS): According to the US Treasury department the American government has negotiated a new income tax deal with Switzerland to provide for increased tax information exchange. The Treasury stated it was part of the Obama Administration’s “aggressive efforts to enforce U.S. tax laws and reduce offshore tax evasion,” and the official signing of the protocol is expected in the next few months.
"This Administration is committed to reducing off shore tax evasion to help ensure that all U.S. taxpayers are playing by the same rules," said Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. "This treaty will increase our ability to enforce our tax laws and will help bring an end to an era of offshore accounts and investments being used for tax evasion."
The protocol would revise the existing U.S.-Switzerland income tax treaty to allow for the exchange of information for income tax purposes to the full extent permitted by Article 26 of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Model Income Tax Convention.
The Treasury stated that in recent months, the Administration has demonstrated its commitment to closing the tax gap. “At the G-20 Leaders’ Summit, the U.S. strongly supported efforts to ensure that all countries adhere to international standards for exchange of tax information. In the FY 2010 Budget, the Administration delivered a detailed reform agenda to reduce the amount of taxes lost through unintended loopholes and the illegal use of hidden accounts by well-off individuals,” the statement read.
The US Treasury Department also recently concluded Gibraltar’s first-ever tax information exchange agreement and signed an agreement with Luxembourg to provide for greater exchange of tax information.
Shop robbed at gun point
(CNS): Police said this morning that detectives in West Bay have begun an investigation into an armed robbery which occurred at G and L Minimart on Watercourse Road, West Bay, last night (Thursday 18 June.) A customer and staff member were forced into a back room by a man they thought was armed with a gun and who’s face was covered with a UDP t-shirt. The robber then made off with the store’s cash register. The offender was described as 5ft 6ins with slim build and a brown complexion.
Police said that the 911 Emergency Communications Centre received a call from a member of staff at the store at around 8.20pm reporting that she had just been robbed by a man carrying what appeared to be a handgun. Police responded to the scene and found that shortly before the 911 call was made a man entered the store and directed the one staff member and one customer which were present to the back of the room.
He then reportedly asked for the cash register to be opened but before it was he removed it from the counter and left the building with it. Neither victim was injured during the incident. An area search was carried out but the suspect was not located.
The offender is described as 5ft 6ins tall, slim built with a brown complexion. His face was covered with a green UDP T-shirt and he was wearing a black long sleeved shirt, blue ¾ length jeans pants and black ‘crock’ shoes.
Police said they would like to hear from anyone who was in the Watercourse Road area at the time who may have seen the offenderprior to or after the robbery or anyone who recognizes the description of the offender.
Anyone who can help should contact West Bay CID on 949-3999 or Crime Stoppers on 800-8477 (TIPS). All persons calling Crime Stoppers remain anonymous, and are eligible for a reward of up to $1000, should their information lead to an arrest or recovery of property/drugs.
Steel panner wins title
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Talking about the award Butterfield Deputy Managing Director Mike McWatt said supporting the arts was important to the bank.
“We feel some of the most meaningful work we do in the community revolves around Cayman’s youth. We are proud of the accomplishments of these young musicians," he said. “Arts and music are an integral part of a young person’s development and we are pleased to support the Young Musician of Year Awards once again this year.”
CIFAA encourages careers in accounting
(CNS): With the donation of 30 laptops to Cayman Brac High School (CBHS), the Cayman Islands Fund Administrators Association (CIFAA) is not only supporting the development of IT in the school but also hoping to let students know about the career opportunities in accounting. Michel Normandeau of Close Brothers said that all the laptops would have mini plaques acknowledging CIFAA, which they hope will remind young Caymanians about the association and encourage them to consider fund administration as a career goal. (Left: Steven Durksen of DoES (back left), Normandeau and two CBHS students)
CIFAA is a major employer in the Cayman Islands that requires qualified accountants with experience in accounting in audit, Normandeau said, and he encouraged young people studying accounting at university to approach some of the big accounting firms for summer jobs. He also noted that the study of accounting also equips young people to run their own businesses, if they should choose that path.
Normandeau, who handed the laptops and two laptop carts to CBHS Principal Adrian Jones (fifth from left) and Steven Durksen, ICT Manager with the Department of Education Services, told CNS that CIFAA had originally planned to make funds available for a scholarship. However, many scholarships go unclaimed and so they decided to do something that would be beneficial to the schools. Last year they donated 20 laptops to John Grey High School, he said.
“Particularly given the impact of Hurricane Paloma last year, the CIFAA board members recognized that it is important for the youth of our Sister Islands to have comparable opportunities to the young people of Grand Cayman,” he added.
A release from the Education Ministry notes that the use of computer technology plays an integral role in the delivery of the school curriculum and students in every year group are encouraged to complete assignments, work on projects and conduct research using the internet and relevant software.
At the heart of this evolution has been the eagerness and comfort shown by every member of staff at Cayman Brac High School in the use of Information technology. This together with support from the Senior Management of the school and the Information Technology Department has resulted in a constant demand for the limited resources currently available. The donation from CIFAA will therefore greatly assist in increasing the provisioning of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) resources to students and will provide them with the necessary tools to take their education and learning to the next level, the release notes.
“I would like to thank the Cayman Islands Fund Administrators Association for their profound generosity,” Jones said. “These laptops will complement existing ones within the school, and will assist in our quest to ensure all students achieve the criteria established for ‘The Educated Caymanian’ and in particular the objective of being adept at using information and communication technology.”
Education Minister Rolston Anglin, also expressed thanks to CIFAA and noted, “Information technology is arguably one of the largest and most important factors shaping our world today and our students must have accessibility to use these tools so that they may develop and learn on par with their global peers. Colleges, Universities and most jobs today require young school leavers to be proficient in ICT and by our young people must have access at an early age so that they can be ready to embrace the technological world in which we live once they move into the workforce. The variety of technologies that teens can use to support their communication, research, and entertainment desires has expanded tremendously over the last few years and proficiency in these areas are increasingly becoming an essential part of every young person’s personal portfolio. To help in acquiring these skills we need more visionary organisations such as CIFAA to pitch in and help us to help our students and give them the best possible competitive edge when they leave our schools.”
CIFAA is the national association which represents companies that provide fund administration services to over 9,000 funds domiciled in the Cayman Islands. This active professional body is dedicated to the provision of a reliable, first-class service to satisfy specific client needs and provides educational opportunities to Caymanians and residents through scholarships and locally run seminars that focus on the industry and its developments.
Chief Education Officer Shirley Wahler, a former principal of CBHS, added, “This is yet another example of the outstanding support this community offers to our schools and young people. I have no doubt that students at Cayman Brac High School will put this generous donation from CIFAA to good use in supporting teaching and learning in the school.”
Bush vows 12 tax deals
(CNS): Speaking to the French media, Leader of Government Business McKeeva Bush has said that by September Cayman will have 12 tax exchange agreements in place and should be removed from the post G20 OECD grey list. He told the French daily newspaper, Le Figaro, that Cayman would become "the Singapore of the Caribbean" and the jurisdiction was not afraid of regulation and transparency as it already has stricter controls than Paris and London.
Bush, who is currently travelling in Europe with a government delegation aiming to sign tax deals and visit the OECD headquarters in Paris, said that he had negotiated a double taxation agreement with France which would meet the requirement set by the OECD, but he did not say when that deal would be signed. The French deal has proved to be one of the most elusive of the tax agreements Cayman has been seeking to sign over the last few years.
Bush stated that he would be signing a bilateral treaty in Berlin on Tuesday, 23 June, with Ireland, which would bring the number of Tax Information Exchange Agreements to ten, just two short of the all important OECD dozen. Ireland is already one of the countries with which Cayman signed a deal under the unilateral mechanism introduced last year. However, the OECD does not appear to have accepted any of the agreements signed under that mechanism as meeting the required standard of exchange.
In his interview with Le Figaro Bush said that the goal now was to sign agreements with all OECD countries and said Cayman was sending a clear message to the international community that tax evaders would not be safe in the Cayman Islands. Bush denied that the mission to sign agreements had anything to do with fear and said Cayman was one of the first jurisdictions to cooperate with the OECD when it signed a tax exchange agreement with the United States in 2001.
Bush explained that the goal now was to remove the label of "tax haven" and said that by cooperating with the OECD he hoped Cayman’s voice would be heard on the international scene on an equal footing. He noted how many other more powerful countries with identical tax practices had not been not stigmatized in the way the Cayman Islands had. He said that Cayman even regulated its fund industry and that the jurisdiction would respect the new rules adopted by the G20. “Our goal is to reassure investors by becoming the Singapore of the Caribbean,” he said.
The leader of government business told the French daily that Cayman had nothing to fear from being transparent and even if those who were evading taxes left the jurisdiction they do not represent the bulk of investors in the Cayman Islands. He explained that investors in Cayman tended to be multinationals, mostly from the USA and also Europe, which benefited from Cayman’s zero -tax system and financial expertise. Bush noted that if the jurisdiction had been dependent on tax evasion and banking secrecy it would have collapsed when the agreement to exchange information with the United States was signed in 2001.
$1.9m for music downloads
(CNN): A federal jury Thursday found a 32-year-old Minnesota woman guilty of illegally downloading music from the Internet and fined her $80,000 each — a total of $1.9 million — for 24 songs. Jammie Thomas-Rasset’s case was the first such copyright infringement case to go to trial in the United States, her attorney said. Attorney Joe Sibley said that his client was shocked at fine, noting that the price tag on the songs she downloaded was 99 cents. She plans to appeal, he said.
Missing revenue questioned
(CNS): The dramatic difference in the predictions made with regard to government earnings by the Financial Secretary’s Office given to the Legislative Assembly Finance Committee in March compared to those revealed last week have raised a number of questions about how those figures could have changed so quickly. CNS has also learned that Financial Secretary Kenneth Jefferson had confirmed as recently as 5 May at a Cabinet meeting that the predictions that government would have earned over $507 million at year end were accurate.
However, in an explanation for the increase in the budget deficit from the March prediction of CI$28.9 million by year to CI$74 million, Jefferson said that the projected earnings were now CI$17 million less than he had predicted based on the information, and the CI government was now expected to have a year end revenue of only CI$490 million. Despite the fact that on 5 May the earnings were still expected to be CI$507 million, the missing revenue in a few short weeks has yet to be explained.
The information for the new forecast was based on data from the same portfolios and ministries which now leaves the question as to what happened in those few weeks to offer such a different picture. Former minister and member of the previous administration, Charles Clifford, says he finds it very difficult to understand how the financial secretary could confirm the predictions in the LA on 23 March and then again at a Cabinet briefing in May only to offer such widely different figures last week.
“The financial secretary himself confirmed those figures were accurate up to 5 May,” said Clifford “He says that he now has new information but something very significant has changed. So how do we know what to believe?”
Clifford said that with such a wide difference in the forecast in such a short period it was clear something mischievous was happening somewhere and that an outside and independent audit should now be undertaken to find out why. “I think perhaps the auditor general might want to put a hand to this and organise an independent audit,” Clifford added.
Auditor General Dan Duguay told CNS that there was an obvious and significant difference that did require some explanation. “I think that the financial secretary should be given the chance to make a statement to explain the differences and reconcile the two different numbers for government’s revenue,” Duguay noted, but said it was probably premature to talk about independent audits.
During the last meeting of Finance Committee before the House was prorogued for the General Election, Members of the Legislative Assembly heard Jefferson explain that projected government revenue had declined form an estimate at the beginning of the financial year by around CI$21.1 million. It is now clear that the original revenue prediction of over CI$528 million was out by almost CI$40 million and represents a significant decline in government earnings.
Beach becomes political issue
(CNS): The former Tourism Minister and MLA for Bodden Town, Charles Clifford, says that the Coe Wood Beach project has become a political football as the current administration had told the contractors to demobilise their equipment and return the beach to its previous state, but have now said the project is not stopped but merely under review. Clifford suggested the backtracking on what was understood to be a cancellation is probably political as a result of the challenge made by Bodden Town voters that could trigger a by-election in the district.
Clifford told CNS that the demobilisation of a project is expensive and would not have been undertaken if this was merely about reviewing the plans. He believes that the UDP government intends to completely stop the project but is finding it politically expedient to now say that it is merely under review rather than being cancelled because of the support for the initiative in the district.
Following a challenge to the validity of the election of the two UDP candidates for the district with regards to their failure to comply with the constitutional requirement under Section 19 (1) (g) in time, Mark Scotland and Dwayne Seymour may well now have to face the Bodden Town electorate again in the next few months and cancelling the Coe Wood Beach project may have an impact on the voters.
“The last information we had was that the contractor had been told to demobilise his equipment and return the beach to the state in which it was found,” said Clifford. “It makes no sense to demobilise the heavy equipment if you are merely reviewing how the project will work asit costs money to do that. I suspect this is a case of panic in the wake of the challenge filed in the court, as the project was welcomed by voters.”
Clifford argued that this is a much neededproject and that official opening ceremony on 25 April just after construction started was not an election stunt but a result of the long term planning and considerations that had been made to ensure it was a sound project.
“This project has been in the works for some time,” he said. “Planning began more than a year ago and we spent a lot of time making sure it would meet the needs of the district, was consistent with the Go East initiative and a sustainable project.”
He said it was unfortunate that the UDP seemed to want to stop it given that it was a scheme to help local small businesses, fisherman and to provide a recreation area for local people. “We were creating a good project and I believe the people of Bodden Town deserve an explanation of what it is they intend to do and to offer a time line if they are not cancelling the project,” Clifford added.
Mark Scotland the new Environment Minister and first elected member for Bodden Town, however, told CNS that there were a number of problems with the project that needed to be reviewed, which was why things had been brought to a halt, but it was not and never had been entirely cancelled. He said it was over-priced and criticised the boat ramp, saying it was being built for non–motorised vessels — a point denied by Clifford, who said it was designed for craft up to 25 feet including motorised boats. Scotland also said the car park in the design was encroaching onto half the beach and he did not believe that was necessary.
“We are also concerned about having the ramp, the fishermen and swimmers all in the same area. You don’t normally have people swimming where you have the fishermen coming in and bring fish or where boats are docking,” he said. “We recognise there are three elements to this but we don’t think they go together. We think this all needs to be re-designed.” Scotland said there were also environmental concerns and that a more ideal solution would be to split up the recreation from the commercial aspects.
Police pedal power
(CNS): There are considerable advantages to policing the district on two wheels says West Bay area commander Chief Inspector Angelique Howell who recently went out on patrol on a bicycle with neighbourhood officer PC Devon Bailey. She said that feedback from residents and business owners has been encouraging with people commenting that the initiative makes the police more visible. “Working on two wheels means we can access areas which vehicles cannot and we can be easily stopped by the public if they want to speak with us,” Howell said.
“Obviously there will be times when bikes are not suitable, for example we cannot respond quickly to emergency situations on two wheels, but cycle patrols have a very important part to play in our overall strategy,” she added.
The police hope that residents will take full advantage of the bicycle patrols and that officers will find themselves more accessible to the public.
“People can approach the officers to chat to them about any problem they may have, report an incident or pass on information about crime taking place. “Officers will also be able to access off-road areas to check out for themselves what’s going on,” Howell explained.
Anyone with information about crime taking place in West Bay should contact the local police station on 949-3999 or Crime Stoppers on 800-8477 (TIPS). All persons calling Crime Stoppers remain anonymous, and are eligible for a reward of up to $1000, should their information lead to an arrest or recovery of property/drugs.