Archive for June, 2010
Air Jamaica returns to Cayman Islands
(CNS): Bruce Nobles, Air Jamaica’s President and CEO, has announced that the airline will be resuming its daily service between Kingston and Grand Cayman next month. The airline is also resuming its summer service from New York (JFK) to Barbados and Grenada. “We are excited about the return to these Caribbean markets. Jamaica and Grand Cayman have shared strong ties for many years, and our service to Barbados and Grenada gives the Diaspora the most convenient way to go home for festivals, fun and family,” said Bruce Nobles, Air Jamaica’s President and CEO.
From 1 July Flight JM069 will depart Kingston at 10:35am every day and arrive in Grand Cayman at 11:30am. Flight JM068 will leave Grand Cayman at 12:30pm each day and land in Kingston at 1:25pm.
The airline is also tempting passengers back with a number of offers, including two bags free in Lovebird Economy class, double rewards miles for 7th Heaven Rewards members who book Lovebird Executive Class, 10% discount for accompanied children and senior citizens, student waivers for date changes and 15% discount on personal cargo shipments for ticketed passengers.
MLAs threaten voters’ ruin
(CNS): Updated 3.45 pm Lawyers representing the two Bodden Town MLAs who were challenged by six voters in their constituency have served those constituents with bankruptcy threats. Mark Scotland, who is now Minister of Health, and Dwayne Seymour, a back bench MLA, failed to comply with Section 19 (1) g of the Cayman Islands Constitution regarding their business interests during the election campaign. Following the UDP MLAs’ election to office, six Bodden Town voters, including an independent candidate, challenged the result. However, as they chose to mount the challenge via a Grand Court Summons instead of an election petition the case was thrown out. Scotland and Seymour have claimed over $70,000 in costs from the challengers.
The Bodden Town challengers were served this week with a bankruptcy notice, which was filed in the courts last month asking the voters for US$70,041.76 to be paid in seven days of the notice being served. The notice warned that if the challengers did not pay up, Scotland and Seymour, members of the current United Democratic Party government, would be taking bankruptcy proceedings against their six constituents, threatening them with financial ruin.
CNS understands, however, that negotiations have taken place between the parties involved and the costs matter has been settled via other undisclosed means. In an official statement the challengers said they were astonished to receive the bankruptcy notices
"It seems that because we sought to uphold the constitution, our two Bodden Town representatives have sought to have us declared bankrupt if we do not immediately pay their costs which were awarded in March of this year.
"We were advised by senior counsel that it was possible to seek to have the constitution upheld by way of an Originating Summons and that it was also possible to do so by way of an election petition under the Elections Law. We chose the former approach because it was less of a partisan approach to the issue. The majority of us have no party affiliation whatsoever."
The Challenges noted the irony that things would have been different if they had taken a partisan approach and proceeded by way of an election petition the circumstances of their BT representatives would likely be very different.
"We respect the view of the court and the rule of law so their costs will be paid. There was no need to take a heavy handed approach of threatening your own constituents with personal bankruptcy but we have come to expect no more," the challengers said.
Sandra Catron, one of the six challengers, who alsostood as an independent candidate in the district, said the bankruptcy notice was extremely unnerving.
“I have been led to understand that this was a very draconian and heavy handed method of trying to recover costs and believe it speaks volumes about the people involved,” said Catron.
”Despite what has been said in the past about this challenge, this was never a personal issue, or even a UDP issue, but it was a matter of principle and we believed that we were doing the right thing. To be threatened with bankruptcy as a result of trying to stand up for democracy sends the wrong message about the system. The message here is that if you do stand up you do so risking everything. This illustrates that we are not an open and free society at all.”
Catron said lessons had been learned for the whole community about any future queries concerning elections. But she added that it was unfortunate that they had been castigated for trying to do what was right.
The controversial challenge was mounted as a result of both Scotland and Seymour missing the deadline to declare and gazette their business interests and contracts with the Cayman Islands government one month before Election Day, as required under the Constitution.
The two MLAs both insisted that this was an oversight and once it was brought to their attention they had filed the details of their respective contracts and, they said, were no longer in breach of the law. Scotland, whose firm ARCP had a number of contracts with government, said at the time that there was no intent to hide anything as all of the businesses he owned were in the Legislative Assembly’s register of interests and the contracts his business had with government were in the public domain.
Seymour said his security firm’s contract with Cayman Airways was also widely known and he did not realise that he also needed to gazette them. He also questioned whether his contract with CAL was a government contract, despite the fact that government is the only shareholder in the national flag carrier.
Following revelations that the candidates had not gazetted their interests as they were required to do, questions were immediately raised by the opposition, other candidates and voters as to whether the two men were disqualified from the election. However, as they had already been nominated under the Election Law neither the Election Office nor the Governor’s Office challenged the candidates’ right to stand and they continued with their campaigns. Calls came from all corners of the community that the attorney general or the governor should disqualify the candidates, but both Samuel Bulgin and Stuart Jack said it was a political matter and they would not get involved.
Following the election, although the AG was one of those named in the Constitution as having the right to mount a challenge over qualification of the two candidates to take up office, he said he would not do so.
In the end the challenge was mounted by lawyers Samson and McGrath on behalf of Gordon Solomon, Sandra Catron (an independent candidate in the election in Bodden Town), Ronald Ebanks, Jean Ebanks, Roxanne Basham-Ebanks and Michael McLaughlin in June last year. The summons asks the court to determine if the two defendants were disqualified, by virtue of section 19 g of the Constitution, from being elected and if their subsequent election was valid or not.
Despite the breach of the Constitution, in the face of the challenge the two candidates insisted it was a "minor technical thing" and they were never disqualified. However, although they had described it as a minor issue the candidates engaged the services of Lord Pannick QC, one of the UK’s leading constitutional lawyers, to defend the challenge, which the MLAs claimed, ironically, had been filed too late and via the Grand Court as an originating summons instead of an election petition, which should have been brought within 21days.
Chief Justice Anthony Smellie found in favour of the MLAs and struck out the challenge, which left the six Bodden Town voters with the legal tab, not just for their own costs but those of Seymour and Scotland.
Bush courts Chinese cash via state run firm
(CNS): The Cayman Islands premier has said he is interested in doing business with China following a visit by a delegation of businessmen from one of the country’s largest state-owned financial and industrial conglomerates. McKeeva Bush met with the Chinese delegation last week and told them he wanted to strengthen existing relationships with their country as he saw China as a valuable business partner for Cayman and would welcome the opportunity to build on that relationship. Bush said Chinese companies represented the future and possible inward investment. (Photo Shuangning Tang with McKeeva Bush)
Constitution talks go public
(CNS): Following the ruling by the information commissioner the Cabinet Office has now finally agreed to release the transcripts from the three rounds of constitutional negotiations between the Cayman Islands and UK Governments. Cabinet Secretary Orrett Connor said that even though the UK agreed to the public release of the transcripts last November his office had to consider the individuals who had taken part believing them to be confidential. However, Connor said now that the documents were in the public domain he encouraged people to read them and see how government had conducted the negotiations on the country’s behalf.
The Machinations of Robb’n in the Hood
Gather round and let me tell you a story of Robb’n in the Hood. I know that many of you will be familiar with the story of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, but that is a very different story. The main character in our story is Robb’n of Ya, and the most important thing to know about Robb’n is that Robb’n liked money, and everything that money can buy.
Robb’n was particularly fond of spending other people’s money. But what made him happiest of all was spending other people’s money on first class travel to places far from Ya, the land of his birth.
He did not forget the country of Ya even with all of his travelling and spending, and his spending and travelling. Whenever he stopped in Ya to refill his pockets with other people’s money, he would remind the poor people paying his bills, “I man born Ya” so that they would feel better about handing over all the money they worked so hard for. Robb’n never sent the poor people post cards from the places he spent their money, but every four years he gave just enough of them refrigerators.
The most important thing to remember about Ya, apart from the poor people whose money Robb’n spent, is that it is not at all like the home of Robin Hood. There is no Sherwood Forest in Ya. There used to be a Mahogany Forest, and an Ironwood Forest, and even a Mangrove Forest when Robb’n was a lad. Robb’n had no use for these and at every opportunity Robb’n sold concessionsto allow developers to bulldoze the forest and to put up parking lots and concrete boxes. You see Robb’n had no respect for the forest or the creatures that lived in it. Those creatures just would not ‘pay up’ the way developers would. Some of the little people of Ya wanted to have a Conservation Law, but the developers looked around and saw a few leaves on trees and they told Robb’nthat the Conservation Law would be bad for the wallets of Robb’n and his henchmen so Robb’n sent the Conservation Law to Never-Never-Land.
Robb’n’s principal henchmen (and what self-respecting despot does not have henchmen) were known through-out the land as The Sullen Men. Some say that The Sullen Men got their collective name from the facial expressions displayed whenever factual comments about their silly behaviour appeared in the media – which was often. Others say that their demeanours were due to infantile colic which they never grew out of (which might also explain the occasionally rages, the throwing of rattles out of prams, the bursting into broadcast operations, as well as any attacks on tourists). There were a number of notable characters among The Sullen Men including:
Rolly the Numerate – Robb’n’s faithful Man-in-Waiting and Waiting and Waiting
The Lady Footwasher – a fierce Crusader who changed her whole life around in order to enjoy the little soap bars found in a hotel.
Sir N. Klyne’d Todowhatheistold – a sometime student of politrix and whatever it is that they teach above the bank in that building on Edward Street.
Frier Dwayne – named for his decades long passion for eating fried foods while carefully studying the subtleties of Ya’s election laws and Constitution
The Marquis of Roundabouts – the master of tourist confusion systems
U. Jean the Neverheardfrom – so quiet that no one knows if he speaks any language at all
E. Lee. O’youdidnotsaythataboutsomerelativeofmine – aka Mini-Robb’n, and
Mikey the Bearded – Mikey got lost on a journey to do good deeds and sadly fell in with the wrong crowd
Now the High Sherriff of Ya is another character, but not quite one of the Sullen Men. The High Sheriff, you see, was appointed by the Queen of Angle-Land to keep an eye on old Robb’n’s careless spending of the poor people’s money (and other threats to law and order). However, the High Sheriff rarely intervened because Robb’n’s lack of understanding of almost everything, as well as his passion for demonstrating this lack to the world at large, tended to send lots of jobs back to Angle-Land and elsewhere.
There are other characters as well, but I have probably spent too much time telling you about the minor characters, particularly given that the only opinion that mattered to Robb’n, was Robb’n’s. You see, The Sullen Men would not question anything Robb’n said or did, and Robb’n let it be known that he would invent a special tax applicable to anyone who questioned him. As a result most people kept quiet, even when Robb’n went on the most outrageous rants, or could not keep straight what he had said a few minutes before and therefore contradicted himself – which was often.
Robb’n and all his friends lived very well on the money that they were taking from the poor people of Ya. Robb’n even hired assorted servants and built a huge new wall for his castle using money from the poor people. Now the poor people were hurting and hungry and rumblings were coming from more than their stomachs. To shut them up Robb’n devised a plan to make a nice speech at the official meeting place, telling the poor people that he would take 30% less of the poor people’s money for himself, and that The Sullen Men would take 20% less of the poor people’s money.
Robb’n’s deception was veryclever. Robb’n and The Sullen Men had no intention of actually taking less of the poor people’s money. Nevertheless, many of the poor people who heard Robb’n’s speech believed him and started saying what a nice man Robb’n was and how he understood their plight. You might be thinking to yourselves that surely the people would come to see Robb’n’s deception, but Robb’n was not worried.
Robb’n assumed that the memory loss which so frequently affected the poor people would work its magic, and that the poor people would soon forget Robb’n’s promise to take less of their money for himself and his henchmen. What Robb’n did not know was that some of the poor people had come under the influence of folks that Robb’n feared more than Freedom of Information, and even more than economy travel itself, the dreaded “bloggers”. You see, “bloggers” helped the people see and understand the tawdry behaviour of Robb’n and his henchmen. As the poor people returned to their senses under the influence of the “bloggers”, they became angry with Robb’n because they realized that Robb’n had spent all of their money on himself and other foolish things.
Then Robb’n schemed, “If I tell people that I saw Mr. R. Denn of the Eastern Area make a funny face, they will no longer blame me.” But Mr. R. Denn said that Robb’n was talking nonsense and that made Robb’n very angry. Then Robb’n schemed, “If I tell people that ‘the people’ want me to keep all their money then the people will think it is true.” But the people didn’t. So Robb’n schemed again and decided to take some friends on a nice vacation in Bermuda and England and all over Europe for a while so that the story of his behaviour would fall off the front page of CNS and the poor people would surely forget.
Well my fellow poor people, have you forgotten yet? If you haven’t you can be sure that Robb’n, The Sullen Men, and all of Robb’n’s highly paid hangers-on are counting their – I mean OUR – money, and they are also counting on all of us having very short memories. After all, the new summer travel season starts immediately after Robb’n and The Sullen Men pass a new make-believe budget showing that, by borrowing even more money that the poor people don’t have, Robb’n and his friends will be able to continue to live well. Undoubtedly Robb’n and many, many of Robb’n’s friends are also hoping to spend huge amounts of the poor people’s money on other trips to Europe and the World Cup in South Africa, and oh so many other places.
Will the poor people allow this to continue? We shall have to wait and see, and seeing is the key – you see. Monsters who hide under beds and despots who waste the people’s money don’t like the lights being on. If those who care shine bright lights in their hiding places, then the monsters and despots fade away. So, even though we can hardly afford to have any lights on at all these days, we should make sure that we keep shining the brightest lights we have on despots and other monsters until all the waste and greed disappear, and the poor people are all able to live in reasonable happiness ever after.
The end.
Seventh-day church accepts guns for amnesty
(CNS): With only one week to go until the RCIPS gun amnesty ends, Pastors from the local mission of the Seventh-day Adventist church have joined forces with the service for the final push and said they are willing to accept illegal weapons from people afraid to go to the police. The Pastors will then in turn hand the weapons over to the RCIPS as part of the ‘no questions asked’ amnesty. Hoping to encourage those who are still reluctant, for whatever reason, to hand over illegal, unlicensed or unwanted, guns and ammunition at a police station, the pastors have said people can come to the church instead.
Wedding business offers boost to local economy
(CNS): As the destinations wedding market continues to grow the department of tourism is making moves to ensure the Cayman Islands continues to enjoy a lucrative share. Following the success of last year’s conference ‘engage!09 : something blue’ the DoT has partnered once again with Engaging Concepts and the Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman to host the islands’ second luxury wedding summit in the Cayman Islands. Acting Director of Tourism, Shomari Scott said the conference was a great opportunity for Cayman and a welcome boost to the local tourism economy at a very difficult time.
G20 leaders to discuss bank tax
(Reuters): Finance ministers and central bankers from the G20 group of countries meet in Busan, Korea on June 4-5 to discuss progress in implementing their pledges to make the world’s financial system safer. Leaders have agreed that banks should be made to pay for bailing out the sector in a future crisis so they can no longer believe they are "too big to fail" or that taxpayers will always be there to rescue them. The International Monetary Fund has proposed two new taxes on banks. The financial stability contribution (FSC) linked to a resolution mechanism to pay for the fiscal cost of any future government support and a financial activities tax (FAT) levied on the profits of financial institutions.
Mac to meet new UK minister
(CNS): The premier begins another round of overseas travel tomorrow, starting in Bermuda for the pre Overseas Territories Consultative Council meeting before heading to London for key budget talks with the new Overseas Territories Minister. McKeeva Bush will be meeting Henry Bellingham for the first time on Tuesday, 8 June, when he will be discussing the Cayman Islands’ borrowing requirement to help balance this year’s budget deficit and meet the payments on next year’s capital projects. Government has still not revealed how the UK has reacted to its proposed three year financial plan or if the minister will be willing to agree to the $200 million or more which it is estimated government will need to borrow.
Tax-haven poker websites hit jackpot
(SMH.com): Prohibition of online poker in Australia has failed to halt the industry’s growth, thanks to the brazen marketing tactics of offshore companies and a reluctance to prosecute illegal operators. Australian visitors to poker websites are increasing by about 20 per cent a year and it is estimated $333 million will flow offshore this year from Australian players alone. Most of the companies offering online poker have bases in tax havens, although some are listed on the London Stock Exchange since Britain legalised interactive gaming.