Candidates must come clean about business

(CNS): All of the candidates who are contesting the general election next month must come clean and declare all of their financial and business interests, employment and directorships, as well as their major assets and shareholdings in a register at the Legislative Assembly. The Register of Interests is open to the public to scrutinize so that they can see what special or pecuniary interests the people nominated to run in the general election have.  All nominees are required by the Register of Interests Law to fill-in, sign and submit the printed Financial Interests Registration Form to the Registrar at the Legislative Assembly Office.

For full details about the law and to print copies of the registration form visit the Legislative Assembly website here.

Printed forms can also be collected from the LA office desk between 8:30am to 5pm. Sale of the law in hard copy is available from 9am to 3pm, according to the LAoffice.

In addition, candidates who have business contracts with government are obligated under the constitution to publish those interests in the government gazette before the day of the general election. The new constitution does not give a specific date, as was the case under the old Cayman Islands constitution, an issue which caught out both Mark Scotland and Dwayne Seymour in the last election. The two candidates both missed the deadline to declare the government business that the two men had at the time of their campaign and were forced to gazette the details of their public contracts late. 

Once elected, no official challenge was mounted against the now incumbent cabinet ministers in the minority government. However, after the election a group of local voters challenged the two candidates in the Grand Court under an originating summons, which was thrown out by the chief justice as he found it was not the appropriate way to challenge an election result.