Archive for August 20th, 2012
‘Brinkmanship failing’
(CNS): Both of the independent members of the Legislative Assembly have warned that the brinkmanship which the premier is engaging in with London over the budget delivery is dangerous and likely to further undermine the relationship between Cayman and the UK. Speaking in the wake of Friday’s last minute cancelation of the budget meeting at the country’s parliament, Ezzard Miller said the premier’s decision to keep calling meetings to present his budget without UK approval in the hope the FCO will blink is making matters worse. Miller said that McKeeva Bush had to get on with producing a credible and sustainable budget, which was not an unreasonable request.
"This brinkmanship with the UK, hoping the FCO will blink and allow him to bring a budget that is not credible or sustainable is dangerous,” the North Side member said. “The government needs to make the necessary cuts and get approval from the UK and then, and only then, make the announcement for the meeting.”
Miller said that what the UK was asking was not unreasonable nor was it unachievable, and it would not serve the people of Cayman for the OT minister to approve a budget that was not credible. He pointed out that the brinkmanship was unlikely to lead to the UK agreeing to something in shouldn’t when it came to the government’s spending plans.
Miller pointed out that the blame for the budget crisis should be laid firmly at the door of the UDP government, not the UK, the bureaucrats or anyone else. He said he suspected that Bush’s goal was to blame the UK for everything that had gone wrong with the UDP’s last year in administration in a hope that people would still vote for him in the next election, which, he said, did nothing to solve the current economic crisis.
“It seems the premier is happy to do wrong himself so long as he can point the finger at someone else,” he said. “But due to the incompetence of those involved in this budget process, even after the government had the benefit of the UK’s economic advisor, it still cannot produce a credible budget. The UK has asked for only two things – that the numbers must be credible and that the numbers must be sustainable.”
He pointed out that the only specific requirement the UK had made was, after three years of failing to contribute to the past service liability for civil servant’s pensions, that the Cayman government must pay in $15 million this financial year, but the rest of the spending plan was down to this current administration. “The government needs to put the right policies in place and get the job done,” Miller added.
The yo-yoing over this year’s budget was also undermining the local economy, Miller said, warning that Bush’s attempts at brinkmanship were helping no one, least of all local businesses, investors or ordinary Caymanians, and it was doing nothing to repair the increasingly fractured relationship with the UK.
Arden McLean, the member for East End who recently de-camped from the PPM, said he was very concerned and believed the wider community should also be concerned about how the premier’s behaviour was souring the relationship with Britain. “I am not going to stand by and let this happened without speaking out against it. He needs to be more respectful of the process and stop being a tyrant,” McLean declared.
The LA is currently scheduled to meet at 2:30 Monday afternoon but there has been no word yet about UK approval. Check back to CNS later this morning for more details on the budget crisis.
FB group in voter drive
(CNS): Following its recent success in galvanizing a large part of the local community to sit up and take note of the country’s fiscal crisis, the Facebook group Cayman United is turning its attention towards getting Caymanians to vote. Joining forces with the former OMOV team, among others, the new social media group which emerged from the campaign against the proposed expat tax says that it wants to persuade as many of the unregistered 10,000 people entitled to vote as possible to join the electoral roll and take part in the next election. Casey Goff, one of the group’s founders, said it was the people of Cayman, not politicians, that would lead the country from the current crisis.
Goff said the current financial crisis was multi-faceted, going far beyond the budget and the proposal for an expat tax.
“The pressing need for a budget is not the crisis nor was the threat of direct taxation and the resultant fissure in our community. These are symptoms of the crisis, which is maladministration,” Goff said, as he announced the group’s intention to get involved in a full scale voter drive, which will begin next month.
“There have been many times when the public, business community or other organisations have ‘lashed out’ against aproposal of government,” he said. “It seems, however, that once these proposals pass or are removed from the table, the public interest in the issue dissipates. The group which I represent has no intention of allowing this to happen with regards to the recent issue of direct taxation.”
Goff explained that the group will be getting much more involved in the local political landscape in an effort to address some of the fundamental problems of poor governance, maladministration and the failure of policies.
“For far too long the citizens of Cayman have remained silent and complacently watched as a series of successive governments led us to where we now stand,” Goff lamented, adding that the general election in May presented an opportunity to elect leaders who are capable of addressing the crisis.
“It is not about the UDP, the PPM or otherwise; it is not about skin colour; it is not about background. What this is about is Cayman, and we must get it right," he said as he urged people to register to vote.
Since the constitution removed the requirement for Caymanian status holders to be naturalized before they can register to vote, there are close to 10,000 people who have the right to vote but who have failed to register on the elections list. According to the elections office, the number of registered voters below the age of thirty is 1,689, only 11% of the total number of electors.
“This number can, and should, be nearing 5000,” said Goff, who explained that Cayman United would be working on a voter drive and a campaign to persuade people that they have the power to change things.
Goff also said that he and members of the group planned to work on a proposal to improve key policy areas, including immigration and the tax burden on small businesses.
Government is currently sitting on a major report from the immigration review team which emerged from the most recent public consultation exercise, in which the team, led by Sherri Bodden-Cowan, recommended the removal of the key employee status and a system to allow everyone who stays for 8 years the right to apply for PR.
According to Goff, the group will be focusing on innovative policies that can empower young Caymanians, stressing the importance of education and skills development for the unemployed, as well as ways in which the financial burden of government levied on small businesses can be lessened to help the economy.