Archive for April 9th, 2014
Brac LA sitting too costly
(CNS): Given the austere times that government and the wider community are facing, one MLA believes the decision to hold this week’s legislative sitting in Cayman Brac is too costly. Ezzard Miller said that he will be paying for his own flights to and from the Brac during the three day sitting but will be returning to his district each evening. While the decision by the North Side MLA may reduce the government’s bill for the session by a small amount, he said the overall cost of the trip is likely to be tens of thousands of dollars because of all the ministry civil servants and LA staff, as well as the politicians, that will need to be flown to the Sister Island and accommodated.
Some government members and civil servants began the four day government visit yesterday with a Cabinet meeting there. The Legislative Assembly will open at 10am this morning at the Aston Rutty Centre, where MLAs will deal with a number of bills relating to the financial services sector as well as government motions dealing with indemnity for Cayman Airways board directors and land rezoning, among other issues. Although the session will be recorded and broadcast on Radio Cayman beginning on Wednesday evening, it is understood that the government TV channel will not broadcast the full live proceedings but hope to deliver sound.
With constituents out of work, schools in desperate need of supplies and cash needed for indigents, Miller said that he did not feel comfortable adding, he felt unnecessarily, to the government’s tab for the meeting.
He said the public purse does not pick up the tab for his travelling to George Town from North Side, so if the parliament has temporarily relocated to the Sister Islands then he would cover the costs of that travel too. Miller told CNS that he will be using the Cayman Airways Express service each day to fly to the Brac in the mornings and return to Grand Cayman each evening in order to be in his constituency. Miller felt there was nothing to be gained by the exercise and noted that the country had a very expensive legislative building in George Town that was already under-utilized.
The Cayman Brac sitting is likely to be the last session of this legislative meeting before the parliament reopens next month for the budget meeting. Although the current premier had indicated he was keen to set a legislative timetable for meetings and sittings and made one attempt to publish a schedule, the legislatorskept only one date. Since then no further timetables have been set.