Archive for October 30th, 2009
Water authority says BT broken main is repaired
(CNS): Update — (Friday 1:50 pm). The burst water main near Kipling Street in Bodden Town has now been repaired the Water Authority – Cayman has said. Crews are now clearing up after the maintenance work which left customers located from Kipling St. to the Bodden Town Cemetery without water for several hours this morning. The Water Authority said that it appreciates the patience and understanding of the motoring public and apologizes for any inconvenience this restoration has caused.
Conch & whelk season opens
(CNS): Open season for conch and whelks begins on Sunday, 1 November, and runs through 30 April 2010, but the Department of Environment (DoE) is reminding the public that there are laws limiting what people can take with hefty fines and a year in jail if those laws are broken. During the open season the catch limit for conch is 5 per person or 10 per boat, whichever is less. No one may purchase or received more than 5 conch taken from Cayman waters in any one day. During the open season the catch limit for whelks is two-and-a-half (2.5) gallons in the shell or two-and-a-half (2.5) pounds processed whelks per day.
No one may take conch or whelk from any of the marine protected areas at any time. Violation of this and any of the Marine Conservation Laws is an offence carrying a maximum penalty of CI$500,000 fine and one year in jail. Upon conviction, forfeiture of the vessel or other equipment may also be ordered.
To report violations of any marine conservation legislation, call the DoE at 916 4271 (Grand Cayman), 926 0136 (Cayman Brac), or 926 2342 (Little Cayman) or call 911.
For the location of marine protected areas, rules and regulations please visit the DoE website or reference the Island Pages in the Cayman Islands Yellow Pages.
Cops say Reid was murdered by three men
(CNS): Three men, who were heavily masked and dressed in dark camouflage clothes, pumped an indiscriminate number of shots into the car which was being driven by Fabian Reid on the night he was killed. Speaking to News 27 in an exclusive interview, lead investigator, Superintendent Marlon Bodden, said several shell casings were left at the scene, reflecting a targeted shooting. Reid was shot three times while reversing the car and his female passenger was also shot in the leg during the incident on 13 October in North Sound Estates.
More than two weeks after Reid was gunned down in Newlands, Bodden told the television news that the murder was reflective of a new phenomena of people grouping up to commit heinous murders. Bodden also noted that It was not just Reid who was a victim but he said the whole community had been impacted.
“It not only claimed the life of Fabian Reid and injured and traumatized his female passenger, but it has also claimed that North Sound Estate area as a victim,” Bodden added.
The senior office said police were following a number of leads in the case. However, Bodden would not comment on whether they were close to making an arrest.
Mac accuses STEP of politics
(CNS): The leader of government business has hit out at one of the Cayman Islands’ leading financial associations. Speaking in the Legislative Assembly on Thursday morning, McKeeva Bush accused the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) of playing politics with their criticisms of the government’s budget and fee increases. Bush said the organisation was “causing a racket”, which he believed came from the heart of the opposition. With what he said was wide consultation over the fee increases, for the group to now come out with their criticisms was nothing more than politics.
Responding to a letter he had received from the STEP chairman, Carlos de Serpa Pimentel, on behalf of the organisation which suggested the fee increases in the 2009/10 budget would harm the financial industry, the LoGB told the House that the organisation was now causing a “racket” after saying one thing during the consultation period but now “going behind backs” to create stumbling blocks.
In an impassioned delivery Bush made it clear he believed the criticisms and objections were being driven by the opposition with veiled references to Antony Duckworth the vice chairman of the organisation and the PPM party chairman. “No duck worth its salt would want to see the country go belly-up,” he said as he expressed his displeasure at what he suggested were STEP’s attempts to derail the government’s plans to get the country’s finances back on track. “We have never had so many politicians in the finance industry as exists today,” he declared.
Bush said that when his party was elected to government in May of this year the country’s finances were in an untenable situation and the UK was putting pressure on government to introduce direct taxation. The LoGB said he had worked tirelessly to find a common position in the financial services sector, which he said did not speak with one voice, to find a solution to avoid the introduction of payroll or property taxes.
“It is my job to get a unified position,” he said, adding that he had consulted widely and there were representatives from the organisation involved in the process. Bush said he was doing everything he could to grow Cayman’s economy again and build up international confidence. “We won’t get growth back with this attitude from STEP,” Bush exclaimed. “We don’t want this politics to undermine what we are doing. ”By building up business again Caymanians would get hired, but that did not seem to matter to STEP," Bush said, as it was “ready to step on people.”
Criticising the media as well as civil servants and others, he said the “twisting and antagonising” could also lead to bad governance and undermine future business. “All of us have to live here, it’s time to settle down,” he added.
The letter from STEP which caused the unplanned outpouring from Bush was sent to his office on 21 October and warned that business will be lost as a result of the significant increases in existing fees and the introduction of new ones. The organisation, which has several hundred members, also noted its concern about the impact of rising violent crime and questioned why government had done little to tackle operating expenses. They also agreed that they did not wish to see direct taxation but were worried what message the UK’s demand to introduce such taxes was having overseas.
“There is a substantial risk that a significant erosion of Cayman’s financial business will occur as a result of a combination of ill-considered and punitive budget measures and uncertainty about the possibility of direct taxation being introduced, all at a time when new business opportunities are hard to come by as a consequence of the global recession,” Pimentel wrote. STEP also asked for clarification on the rationale behind the revenue raising measures and a statement that government will not accept any proposal concerning direct taxation.
Speaking to CNS, Duckworth said that the letter was not a political position and that the points in it were agreed upon by the wider membership. The society would be offended, he said, by the suggestion that they just did what he told them. “The suggestion is rubbish,” Duckworth added. “It was the STEP committee that wrote the letter on behalf of the wider membership and I do not believe there were any dissenting voices at the meeting when the decision was made.”
Duckworth noted that the letter was written in the spirit of the consultation process, which meant when government questioned industry sectors about how certain things would impact their business, they offer a truthful assessment, and then with that knowledge government makes its decisions. He explained that in such circumstances the government needed to hear the unvarnished truth. The idea that the sector could speak with one voice was misplaced, he said, as different areas obviously have different positions on how their business would be impacted by certain measures.
Duckworth also noted that while most of the industry’s various associations saw Cayman Finance as a focal point for the wider PR campaign to dispel the myths about Cayman on the international stage, it could not speak for the entire industry in matters such as this. “It’s maybe handy to have CF to talk to but it does not necessarily speak on behalf of all the associations which make up the financial services industry, especially in matters directly affecting it,” Duckworth observed.
Bush lashed out at STEP as the House considered and passed a bill to amend the Building Societies Law to introduce a regulatory fee of $7,000 for societies registered under the law.
Minister back on track
(CNS): After what he described as a very frustrating first half term as the education minister, Rolston Anglin says that his attention is now back on the issues relating to teachers and PTAs. Since taking up office after the election Anglin has focused almost exclusively on the school development projects and the budget but is now turning his attention to the process of addressing what is happening in the schools and preparing the regulations that will underscore the Education Modernisation Law that was passed in March of this year.
Despite this, Anglin admits that the dispute with the developer of the new Clifton Hunter High School and the redevelopment of the John Gray High School, Tom Jones International is not over yet. Although, after a recent stoppage TJI has returned to the John Gray site and resumed work, the minister said that a figure regarding the $15 million or so claimed in change order charges has not yet been settled, but he was hopeful it could be addressed sooner rather than later.
“We know that the figure in question is not going to become zero, so it is in the developer’s interest to settle this too,” he said. “He is going to get something and the sooner we agree on a realistic figure the sooner the developer will be paid.”
Anglin said that a project manager for both the developments had been identified and he would be in post from next week, at which point the senior staff in the ministry and Anglin would be able to re-focus their attention on other matters. He also noted that the PM would be able to give a clearer understanding of where cost reductions on the interior fit-out of the schools can be made. The minister said he was still hopeful that what have been termed some of the "Cadillac items" could still be cut out but and that would be a priority for the new PM.
“Once the project manager arrives we will have a much better understanding of the realistic situation on these projects,” he said adding that it was crucial that this individual was in place as having criticised what had gone before it was important to make sure the current ministry didn’t make the same mistake of trying to manage the project. The minister explained he would soon be at the point where he was no longer required to be involved in the school situation on a day to day basis.
He said his priority now was to assess some of the problems, concerns and frustrations within the existing schools. Although there are good things going on, Anglin observed, not everything was good. He said there were various concerns among teachers about the current numeracy programme and he had his concerns about the behaviour problems in the schools.
Talking about the education law, he said that he wanted to review the regulations and once those were complete, he said there may be some areas that may sit better wrapped up in the law itself. Anglin said he believed the education law was merely a framework with the regulations intended to shape it. Some areas would be about policy, he said, but things such as how truancy is dealt with probably needed to form part of the law. Anglin estimated that the regulations would be ready by the end of the school year in time to implement the law before the next.
“I want to take a holistic view during this review process,” he said. “There may be some things that we will have to include in the law other things will be left in the regulations.”
Anglin once again reiterated why the current government had chosen to delay the law’s implementation when he said that the teachers and other educators were still not ready as they were not familiar with it and there needed to be further consultation and review.
The former education minister, Alden McLaughlin, however, recently observed that many of the changes the law brought to the education system were policies that were already in place in the system and in the schools as they had been rolled out over his term in office. While the law was passed at the end of the last administration McLaughlin noted that he had begun changing policy as much as three years before. The implementation date had been set for 1 September to coincide with the start of the 2009/10 school year and its delay was described by the former minster as an indication that the content of the law was going to be changed.
“The 1 September start date was carefully considered before it was cited as the day the law would come into force,” McLaughlin said in August. The start date was discussed at length with ministry staff and legislative drafters to make sure that it would offer enough time to put everything that was needed in place and they agreed that 1 September would be sufficient time and appropriate to fit with the school year. There are no justifiable working or technical reasons for this delay; it is about rolling back the transformations that have taken place in the education system.”