Territories look for one voice
(CNS): The proposed regional high security prison, a change to their respective borrowing guidelines, the role of premiers regarding those who are naturalized and the UK’s contingent liabilities were just some of the topics on the agenda this weekend at the Pre-Overseas Territories Consultative Council (OTCC) meeting in Bermuda. The Cayman Island Premier McKeeva Bush joined the delegation of leaders from all of the region’s British overseas territories to find collective support and a single voice on a number of issues to advance at the OTCC meeting later this year.
At the opening of the meeting in Hamilton, Bermuda Premier Dr Ewart Brown outlined the importance of a collective position. “In the time that we have been holding these meetings in advance of our discussions with the UK, we have come to understand the power inherent in speaking with one voice,” Brown said. “We have come to understand that we do possess the ability to make that voice be heard. And we have come to understand that we are stronger together than apart.”
Other topics on the agenda included the European Commission Report on Civil Protection in the Caribbean, civil aviation, law and order and the role of the premier and elected members in the NSC, role of the governor in appointments of senior members of government, redefining consultation and constitutional advancement.
Following the Bermuda meeting, which finished on Sunday, Bush will be travelling to London where he will be discussing Cayman’s forthcoming budget with the UK’s new Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Henry Bellingham, MP on Tuesday (8 June). He will then head to Brussels on 9 June for talks with EU representatives regarding the Alternative Investment Fund Manager Directive, the new European regulations that could have an impact on the Cayman Islands hedge fund sector.
Bush is expected back in the Cayman Islands by 13 June in time to deliver the much anticipated 2010/11 budget on Tuesday 15 June.
Category: Local News
Please tell me more about "the role of premiers regarding those who are naturalized". I have been here for 14 years, married to a 7th generation Caymanian, my status was granted 3 years ago and I want to get naturalized. So what is this new discussion about the role of Premiers being involved in some way with naturalization???
Funnily enough a lot of what is being said by Bush is being touted across the rest of Caricom, especially in terms of having a high security prison in place. People are missing a lot of things in this whole crime scenario. A lot of the criminality that we are experiencing are not home grown criminality but basically criminality of the imported type, and I am not talking about Jamaica. I am talking about the persons who left the Caribbean when they were very young children, who have no family in the Caribbean and who grew up in America, Canada and the UK, adopted advanced methods of organised crime from the Italians and the Irish and have now made it even more vicious than anything the Caribbean has produced. In addition, a lot of the criminals that we now have are based on the Colombian way of doing things. A high security prison, perhaps based underground (so that hurricanes cannot destroy it) will go a long way in securing the Caribbean on a whole, because lest we forget this is not a Jamaica, Cayman, Trinidad or Bermuda problem. This is a Caribbean problem. The major countries of the world have bred these criminals and raised them and when they have done their time they pass laws to ensure that they do not remain in the US, Canada or the UK. Perhaps what the Caribbean needs to do is to enact legislation that states that once you have lived outside the Caribbean for a period over 10 years, and have committed a criminal offence you are no longer a citizen of that country and therefore all these countries that are using the Caribbean as a dumping ground for their criminals will find a way to keep these prisoners locked up until they are too old to cause problems anywhere that they go.
Not sure I agree with you on this.
I can not speak for the Caribbean as a whole but I believe that most of whatwe are getting lies between home grown and Jamaica with springles of other nationalities but the majority is right from our neck of the woods.
The need for a prison that is more threatening is evident. Our Her Majesty’s Hotel at Northward simply does nothing to deter criminal behaviour in fact I would dare say it creates this behaviour because it is my belief the fact that:
1) It’s not threatening. This makes criminals not fear the worst case scenarios of their actions.
2) Because they are so pampered with all the amenities they may have difficulty transitioning DOWN to their outside life and have to go back because they can’t afford that life outside.
Mr. Bush is a good man. Generally I support all he does, and I feel deep down he has the interestsof the Cayman Islands at heart.
Very very few people can be elected an MLA which is part of the reason we have such terrible governance.
There are enough Caymanians. We are only talking about 15-17 seats not 100 seats.
Our problem is we seem to be scraping the bottom of the pile too much.
After reading about the Premier’s meeting in Bermuda and UK, it is important for us to realize that anyone can be elected to office and become an MLA, but it takes a special person with special qualities to be a Premier.
I think you will need to expand on what you are saying before we can understand truly what you mean.
Are you saying he is the person for the job or truly just another MLA and not right for the post?
It does, and Bush does not have what it takes.