Archive for April, 2013
WHO Day focus on critical local health risk
(CNS): High Blood Pressure is the focus of this year’s World Health Day which is being observed Friday across the world. As Cayman joined with other countries to promote greater awareness and prevention to one of the country’s biggest health concerns, Health minster Mark Scotland urged people to learn more about their blood pressure. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one in three adults worldwide has high blood pressure and in Cayamn’s 2010 census its was revealed as one of the top three illnesses here with a prevalence of 89.1 per 1000 population. Scotland said however that it is both preventable and treatable.
“I urge the public to engage in physical activity, to utilize the walking track at the football grounds behind the John Gray High School Compound, reduce salt intake, use a balanced diet and appropriate medication to prevent or control high blood pressure,” he said, in an effort to reduce the incidence of these diseases.
See minster’s full message marking WHO day below
Nursing degree launched at local college
(CNS): Caymanians who want to train for the medical profession now have access to a full general nursing degree programme which starts at the beginning of the this coming academic year at UCCI. The Nursing Programme was developed in recognition of the fact that skilled and professional healthcare workers are important to support the healthcare sector in the Cayman Islands. The education minister said healthcare was immune to downturns, and with the advent of the Shetty hospital and medical tourism project, along with the growing needs in the existing local healthcare sector, the degree was an important step forward.
The programme was launched by the University College of the Cayman Islands in conjunction with the health and education ministries and Caymanians wishing to take the course will have access to scholarships.Education Minister Rolston Anglin said it was important to encourage Caymanians to become part of the medical profession. He said it was a regulated and internationally recognised course, adding that he looked forward to seeing the nurses graduate.
According to 2008 statistics 7.9% of the Cayman Islands' workforce was employed in the education, health services and social work industries. Excluding government contracts, 672 work permits, which represent 2.6% total work permit holders, were issued for professional workers in education, health services and social work industries.
Roy Bodden, UCCI President and Chair of the Nursing Advisory Council, expressed his excitement over this much-anticipated event.
“The establishment of a School of Nursing at the University College not only broadens the educational options of our students, but also speaks volumes to the growth of UCCI as a tertiary level institution. Importantly, too, it conveys a sense of the growth of the Cayman Islands as a maturing society,” he said.
Health Minister Mark Scotland said the local Health Services Authority had made efforts to offer nursing training with the Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) programme, which had to be suspended in lieu of a more cost effective programme.
“The new Nursing Programme at UCCI will provide opportunities for graduates of the LPN programme and other students looking to have a rewarding career in the health care industry to obtain a Bachelor’s Degree and qualify to become Registered Nurses without having to leave the island,” he said. “The curriculum provides a global perspective and is comparable with other curricula in the region and elsewhere in the world. Priced competitively, the programme is internationally attractive. It is also important to note that we have taken care to bring special focus and attention to the needs of the local industry.”
To qualify for the programme, applicants must have a minimum of five CXC, IGCSE, GSCE passes with grades 1-3 or A-C. These must include Mathematics, English Language and a pure science (Biology, Human and Social Biology). Among the five subjects, no more than two subjects should be at grades III.
Alternatively, those with an LPN Certificate may also apply. They must have five years relevant experience, an examination pass in Mathematics (CSC, IGCSE,GCSE) plus a recommendation from an employer.
All applicants must be at least 17 years old at time of entry into the programme. They must submit an essay or personal statement as part of their application. An interview is also required.
The Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing is awarded on successful completion of the programme of study. Graduates are eligible to write the Nursing Council of Jamaica approved and administered Regional Examination for Nurse Registration (RENR) to obtain the title of Registered Nurse, which is a requirement for practicing nursing legally.
Applications from qualified students are still being accepted until 1 May 2013. Bodden said, “Nursing is an attractive, viable and caring vocation in which practitioners can derive a sense of self-worth, as well as satisfaction, from helping others.”
Anyone interested in learning more about the programme is invited to visit the website for further information at ucci.edu.ky.
Tour operators encouraged to stick with local drivers
(CNS): The tourism minister has said that a dispute among local transport operators has been resolved with an agreement by the owners of the buses to use local drivers if government agrees to waive the fee required for them to pass the public transport licence test. Although not formally declared as the first Caymanian only occupation which was provided for in legislation passed in last sitting of the Legislative Assembly, the tourism minister said Thursday that ambiguity regarding transport application fees had led to a compromise that will encourage the employment of local drivers.
Speaking during Thursday’s press briefing, Glidden said that Caymanian owners of the buses in some cases were employing foreign drivers and had disputed the need to pay public transport fees because they believed they were exempt. However, Glidden explained that the fee applied to the driver so if they were not local then a fee had to be paid regardless of who owned the bus.
Requests to change the regulations were declined by government who instead agreed to waive the license fee for local drivers wanting to qualify as bus drivers. The tourism minister said the tour operators had found that the $150 fee for drivers to get a public transport license to drive a bus was a genuine barrier to many local people. By waiving that fee and enabling more local drivers to qualify, instead of waiving the fee for foreign drivers should Glidden said provide a more positive outcome for all encouraging Caymanian employment.
In addition, the minister said the department was going to examine the tourism test which the drivers are also expected to take as he said there was a 95% failure rate which suggested that there was something wrong with the test.
Christian gives up on 2013 political aspirations
(CNS): Although he believes that he still has a case on which to base a challenge to his disqualification by the Elections Office, Richard Christian has thrown in the towel on his election bid for 2013. The Bodden Town hopeful, who had planned to run alongside the incumbent minority government on the new People’s National Alliance ticket, said he was advised that a challenge would be “both lengthy and costly” and, as he was not in a financial position to meet a hefty legal bill, he had no other option but to withdraw his candidacy. His colleagues in the PNA said Thursday that they were disappointed but had to respect the decision by the Elections Office. Christian said he, too, respected the official decision to disqualify him but he did not agree with it.
"I feel that the country needs clarification on what the intent is, for section 61 (2) (b) and 62 (1) (a) of the constitution,” he said. “I appeal to our legislators and legal community to help resolve this question, as it affects many Caymanians who had to travel to the US in the 60’s and 70’s for work or medical reasons and had children there.”
With the country demanding more accountable politicians, Christian said he took full responsibility for what he described as a “technical and complex oversight and the controversy that arose”, as he apologized to his supporters, his PNA colleagues and the country. Christian said he was not ruling out running in 2017 but in the meantime he would continue to play his part in the community.
Cabinet admit port surprise
(CNS): Members of the current Cabinet, most of whom were members of the previous UDP government, have admitted that, while they knew talks with CHEC had moved toward a framework agreement, they had no idea their leader had signed that deal without any legal advice. The ministers stated Thursday that they could not be sure that other things that they were unaware of would not turn up that may cause concern or raise liability issues for government. The framework agreement, which was signed by McKeeva Bush without consulting his then Cabinet colleagues, including the attorney general, was discovered by the minority government only last week.
Speaking at Thursday’s government press briefing, in the absence of current premier, who has not yet made any public comment about the discovery, the remaining four ministers revealed how they were kept in the dark about this deal. The copy of the signed framework agreement between the Port Authority, the Cayman government and China Harbour Engineering Limited was leaked to the independent members for East End and North Side and first published on CNS this week.
The document was first seen by Cabinet members last week, when it was given to Cline Glidden, the new tourism minister. Glidden’s ministerial team had set about looking for any and all documentation relating to the cruise berthing facilities project to help with the strategic outline for a competitive tender. Glidden said the framework document was given to his ministry by the Port Authority after several weeks of pressing for relevant information. He said there were also question marks about what commitments had been made regarding the proposals surrounding the Spotts Jetty, which he had wanted to clear up.
While not surprised to see the agreement, the ministers said it was surprising that it had been signed without any legal advice.
Glidden, who had been involved in the previous negotiations with both DECCO and the GLF Construction, also said he was surprised to see some of the details of the agreement. He pointed out that the talks with DECCO were stopped because there was concern over the original request for a 99 year lease that the Dart Group’s construction firm had been seeking to ensure it recouped its costs, and that GLF had been dropped because the premier believed they did not have financing.
The current tourism minister noted that the content of the CHEC deal offered the Chinese firm a lease of some 81 years and that the financing was less than certain and still dependent on passenger guarantees.
None of the Cabinet members were able to say why they believed the former premier had not consulted Cabinet and signed it before engaging in a discussion with his colleagues, let alone the wider caucus. The ministers said they had repeatedly been told that when the negotiations were over, they would all be privy to all of the details.
The legal department has now been given a copy of the document to assess any possible liability to CIG. But Glidden said there was no way to know if this, or any other documents which to date remain undiscovered that could have been signed behind closed doors, will lead to future liabilities for the next administration.
“We would love to say there areno more surprises, but …” Glidden said.
See related story here and CHEC Framework Agreement below.
Budget report due before election day
(CNS): The interim government has confirmed that a pre-election budget report, currently being completed by civil servants, will be published before 24 April. In accordance with the law, ensuring that everyone who is running for office is aware of the state of the country’s public finances ahead of the national poll, the report cannot be released less than 42 days before the election. As a result, Cabinet members said Thursday that they were unable to reveal how close government is to meeting the whopping $87 million surplus predicted in the 2012/13 budget. However, Deputy Premier Rolston Anglin said they believed government could expect a “healthy” surplus.
There is speculation that, despite significant cost-cutting efforts, government will not reach the target surplus but there has been no indication of how far short the public purse will be when it comes to the year-end result.
The incumbent politicians have no input in the report, which will be released ahead of the election but will still be a projection. With little activity in May and June in terms of government spending and earning, however, Anglin, who is a qualified accountant, said that the figure would give a reasonable assessment of how the year is likely to end.
He said that Cabinet members had not yet seen the report and its projections but, by all other indications, government was confident of what would be a “healthy surplus" by 30 June 2013. The report itself will be gazetted sometime after 10 April but before the 24 April and made public. Anglin stated that the ministers would be in a position to comment on the report at next week’s briefing with the media.
The report will contain predictions regarding the unemployment levels, inflation, bank balances and the budget surplus, and while Cabinet believes the forecasts will be relatively close to the actual performance of government and the economy for this financial year, its accuracy won’t be known until after the year-end and the election.
Arguments persist regarding the final budget of the previous PPM administration and the much discussed $80 million deficit. But question marks remain about the predictions that were given in March 2009 to the government at the time compared to the figures revealed during the election campaign that year. As a result, the deputy premier said efforts were being made by the administration to ensure the predictions were as accurate as possible and that they reflected the true position of government finances, especially where government companies were concerned.
New faces join local public sector commissions
(CNS): The governor has appointed five newpeople to a number of commissions that fall under his remit. Attorney David Ritch has been appointed Chairman of the Constitutional Commission for a period of three years while accountant Ian Wight has been appointed as a member of the Commission for Standards in Public Life. The former deputy governor Donovan Ebanks has been appointed Chairman of the Civil Service Appeals Commission for a period of three years while Stacey VanDevelde and Deanna Look Loy have been appointed to serve as members of that commission.
Ritch is the Senior Partner at the firm he founded, Ritch and Conolly and a past president of the Law Society who has served on numerous Government Statutory Boards. Ian Wight, a local consultant, worked as Managing Partner of Deloitte in the Cayman Islands for over twenty years. He has been an associate member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales since 1974 and a Fellow since 1981. He is a member of the Cayman Islands Society of Professional Accountants since 1979.
Donovan Ebanks worked as a public servant for thirty-six years in the Public Works Department and then as Deputy Chief Secretary, Chief Secretary and then became the first Deputy Governor of the Cayman Islands. He is former Chairman of the National Hurricane Committee and the National Hazard Management Council. He currently serves as Chairman of the Records Management Advisory Committee.
Stacey VanDevelde formerly worked at KPMG and was a member of the Board of the Cayman Islands Society for Human Resource Professionals (CISHRP) from 2000 and served as President from 2006 to 2008. Deanna Look Loy was Director of Social Services for 17 of her 37 years in the public sector.
“I am honoured to be able to appoint such outstanding members of the community into these important roles,” the governor, Duncan Taylor stated. “Their extensive knowledge and experience will be invaluable to the Commissions they serve on. I am confident that this will help ensure that the Commissions meet their legislative and constitutional remits effectively.”
Cops and election officials start anti-corruption drive
(CNS): The Elections Office and the Anti-Corruption Commission are warning not just the candidates but the electorate as well not to vote for a prison sentence by selling their votes during the 2013 election campaign. Having joined forces with the ant-corruption cops, election officials said that buying or selling votes is a crime and could result in hefty fines and time in prison if people are caught. Despite the persistent rumours of significant corruption surrounding votes at election time in the past, the police commissioner said that no complaints about vote buying and selling had ever been made to the police and no one has ever been charged.
Having already warned candidates and the public about entertainment and refreshments at public meetings, the election's supervisors and the RCIPS will be using social media images, PSAs, and print adverts, to hammer home to all involved in the election process the need to fully comply with both the Elections Law and Anti-Corruption legislation.
The ads, that will start appearing from Monday, 8 April, make it clear that people can either use their vote appropriately and opt for democracy, or they can sell their vote, sell out their country and end up in jail, officialssaid in a joint release.
“The aim of this ad campaign is, quite simply, to ensure that these elections remain free and fair and that everyone involved keeps to the letter of the law,” said David Baines, the commissioner and head of the Anti-Corruption Commission. “There have been many rumours circulating in Cayman in recent years about items such as fridges and cash being used to buy votes. Despite these rumours, no complaints have been made to police and no one has been charged. However, there has been much public and media speculation about this subject in recent days and, as such, we felt it important to ensure that all of those involved in the election process are made aware of the hefty penalties for this crime.”
During the last election reports were made to the RCIPS regarding potential undue influence when small crib cards were reportedly being handed out on Election Day by UDP supporters in the capital directing voters how to cast their ballot for the party’s four George Town candidates. The police opened an investigation, which went on for several years, but the case was eventually closed for lack of evidence.
Cayman is expecting to host independent observers for the first time for the May elections and is also now under a much stricter anti-corruption regime following the implementation of the Anti-Corruption Commission after the 2009 ballot.
The elections law states that any attempt to influence voting by supplying or accepting items such as food, drink, entertainment, electrical goods or cash is a crime. This can be committed by anyone in society – candidates, their representatives, sitting MLAs or members of the public. The punishment for the crime will be determined by the status of the person either supplying or accepting the inducement.
Public officials and sitting MLAs can expect a CI$2000 fine or up to 14 years in prison (under S.10 of the Anti-Corruption law) and others can expect a fine of CI$2000 or up to 12 months in prison (under S.95 of the Elections Law).
Supervisor of Elections Kearney Gomez said that steps have already been taken to ensure that the candidates and their agents are fully conversant with the relevant laws.
“All candidates have been supplied with a handbook as well as the supervisor’s letter which addressed certain topical information, including elections offences. Additionally, a Candidate’s Kit is available for purchase from the Elections Office that provides an A –Z guide to the elections process. Therefore, they should be well aware of what is legal and what is not when they engage in public and media discussions. These adverts are just another way to ensure that candidates and the electorate are kept fully informed,” Gomez added.
Anyone who is offered some form of inducement for their vote or witnesses vote buying or selling can make a report to either the police or the Elections Office.
Airport project to start over, CAL could buy planes
(CNS): Efforts by the Cayman Islands Airports Authority to persuade the Central Tenders Committee (CTC) via a business case that its proposed redevelopment could be offered to a sole bidder have failed and government will have to go back to the drawing board on this project. Tourism Minister Cline Glidden said that a new independent business case assessment would now need to be carried out before the project could move towards a request for proposal on an open competitive tender. Meanwhile, Cayman Airways has been given the go-ahead to present its case to the FCO for the purchase of the 737s, which are approaching the end of their lease.
Speaking at Thursday’s press briefing, Glidden said that a the FCO’s own economic adviser has helped put together the value for money case to buy the aircraft, which, despite the financial constraints on the government, may allow CAL to borrow the money to buy the aircraft if London could be persuaded that buying would save the public purse money over thereturn of the planes and the start of new leases.
The tourism minister also revealed that the preliminary deal, which had begun under his predecessor with the owners of the Philippines airline PAL was no longer active. Glidden said that he could find no evidence in the tourism ministry, which was previously held by former premier McKeeva Bush, of cash changing hands. He said the board had concerns about the proposal, which could have seen the Asian airline hold shares in CAL, and as far as the national flag carrier and the ministry were aware, there were no remaining obligations regarding those talks to the CIG.
Glidden also explained why the airport development business case was going back to the drawing board. He said that all of the work completed so far by the airport management was to present a case for a sole bidder, but that would not meet the business case requirements, as set out in the fiscal agreement with Cayman and the UK, which is now part of the Public Management and Finance Law, for a proposal for a competitive tender.
He explained that when the Airports Authority began making a case for a sole bidder, which was eventually declined by the CTC, the Framework for Fiscal Responsibility was not in existence. As a result, a new business case to justify the project, which will involve public funds, will now have to be undertaken by an independent consultant.
Updating the press and the public regarding the cruise port, he said that had taken a step forward in the process as the strategic outline had been completed and had been presented to the deputy governor, who heads the public sector investment committee. The committee will scrutinize the outline, which, Glidden said, would form part of the request for proposals for developers to make a bid for the project.
Four week closure at Raleigh Quay for utility work
(CNS): Dart Reality Cayman Ltd is closing another public road for some four weeks in order to undertake utility work on the road running parallel to the site where it proposes to develop a luxury hotel. Raleigh Quay, one of the connections to the West Bay Road and the new Esterley Tibbetts Highway extension, will be closed to traffic on Monday 8 April for around four weeks. As a result, more temporary traffic diversions will be put in place in the area to enable people to access the beach, local bars, Foster Bay Villas and St Matthew’s Residences. Dart said that there would be no left turn onto Raleigh Quay from the highway during works.
Local traffic from Raleigh Quay will exit right onto West Bay Road to the Yacht Drive Roundabout. Meanwhile, access to St Matthew’s Residences and Foster Bay Villas will be via the Yacht Drive Roundabout and access to Tiki Beach, Surfside and Calico Jack's will also be via the Yacht Drive Roundabout, officials from Dart stated.
The work is all part of government’s controversial deal with Dart to swap land with the developer to facilitate the development of the former Courtyard Marriott hotel site as a beachfront resort. The deal will eventually see most of the West Bay Road from the Governor’s Way junction to Yacht Drive closed to vehicular traffic.
See full details of the latest diversions and traffic flow changes below.