Mac pushes for duty cut
(CNS): The Legislative Assembly will be debating further duty cuts when the members next meet as well as amendments to the immigration law to equalize the status of foreign spouses married to Caymanians to that of permanent residents' spouses and to reinstate the special provisions for caregivers. Two of the motions were brought by Opposition Leader McKeeva Bush and one by government back-benchers but all three were deferred from the recent budget meeting in order to accommodate motions brought by Bush regarding the airport issues and the marinas in Cayman Brac. Bush’s motion on duty presses government to meet its election pledge to cut the duty he had placed on fuel.
In an ironic twist, the opposition leader’s motion asks the current administration to consider cutting the import duty levied on fuel to bring down “the cost to the consumer in a meaningful manner”, in line he says with election promises. Bush points the finger at the PPM over the duty’s imposition as he states that his UDP government was forced to levy the extra duty because of the cost of the high schools, the Government Administration Building and the high deficit of 2008/09.
So far, government has only cut duty on fuel imported by CUC by 25 cents a gallon and this will not come into effect until January 2015. Although the Progressive administration has said it plans to make further cuts, that won’t be until government finances have stabilized further.
The tone of the opposition leader’s motion, however, is likely to continue to stir up the animosity, on full show during the recent budget meeting, between Bush and Premier Alden McLaughlin. Regardless of the passage of time since the 2008/09 deficit, the opposition leader is still pointing to that and the high schools as the cause of all Cayman’s public finance ills.
Bush will also likely provoke argument with his motion asking for the reinstatement of special provisions for caregivers, which was removed in October when government amended the term limits to remove the seven year rollover and allow all work permit holders to stay long enough to apply for permanent residency. This means that caregivers can also make the application but Bush is seeking to allow those taking care of elderly people in particular to be allowed to stay indefinitely.
Meanwhile,a motion filed by veteran member and government backbencher Anthony Eden, backed by Alva Suckoo, is expected to raise less concern as it is aimed at addressing an inequity in the immigration law as it relates to foreign spouses of Caymanians and residents.
The current immigration law provides for a spouse of a permanent resident to be added as a dependent, allowing both to apply for naturalization as British Overseas Territories Citizens of the CaymanIslands following one year of such grant. However, a foreigner married to a Caymanian who is granted PR has to wait for seven years of marriage before they can apply for status.
In his motion Eden says the apparent anomaly has been in the law for many years but it appears to be that the restrictions on foreign spouses of Caymanians is causing tensions within the community and viewed by Caymanians as unfair treatment.
Category: Politics
Oh no, Bo Bo you still around and your trickery is amazing and self glorifying
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the perfect one! There are none as perfect
Haters are simp.ly a lost tribe Haters hate and they hate everyone, everything and nothing!
IT IS SO SHAME FULL THAT YOU GUYS SHOOT THE MESSENGER.
Why kill McKeeva for trying to get duty cuts, it is only a fool that would criticize a man asking for duty cuts that would benefit us all. I don’t vote for Mac but you would have to be an absolute nutter to not appreciate what he is trying to do.
It's a shame that he is on and on about this reduction, becauseT he was the one who implemented the duty hike.
It only would have been a fool to think that he could tax a country out of an ecomomic slump (commonsense 101 – do not implement added taxes to people already suffering – it forces them to spend less not more).
Now he is putting pressure to undo what he did!
This is exactly why he should have stepped down.
Because we know that this is just a political ploy which he calculates can help his popularity but which he would not do if he were in govt.
Mr. Bush, you are under criminal investigation. Please be quiet until you are exonerated.
Gotta love how Mac wants to cut taxes now that he isn't in charge of spending.
We will never forget the expat tax Mac, no matter what you do.
Mackeeva reminds me of Ezzard they need constant media atrtention good or bad it doesn't matter. Hopefully both are close to retirement.
How about pushing for an MLA pay and benefits cut? Or does Mac like the trough too much?
Watch out folks, soon we'll get a bill for consultancy fees.
Cheap Grocery store for all. Just the basics but for a few million $$$$$ many jobs created and the cost of living wouldn't be so bad.
I know people will say it would hurt the Grocery stores but that is just not so.
People will still spend all they can but at least familys that dont have enough $$ will have the basic food needs met.
Because we all know Gov't is great at running an efficient business. Gov't and the tax-in-advance duty system are the very reason grocery prices are so high now. This my friend is a free market economy, not socialism. The market does not allow any one competitor in a competitive industry to take exorbitant profits. If you want a Gov't grocery store, you can always go to Cuba. Go see how your socialist ideas have worked out for them.
Yes the idea is socialist but that is what cayman is about weather they want to admit it or not
In Cayman though it is socialist and capitalist at the same time thats why i say have the cheap grocery store and free restaurant while you are at it.
and i did not say it would be efficient It would just close the gap between peole that have and have not.
If i wasnt so busy feeding your people now i would open the store myself and most likely make money doing
Hey mac just heard cayman27 14 burgularies between thursday-friday and we are not into saturday evening and just hearing about it????14???? So what are you going to do about that??? Where are the police, why wasn't the public told immediately????I repeat 14?????? The police, commissioner and all in the force are useless!!!! Two days two days and we are just hearing about it now? Hey ezzard i don't think cameras can protect us…..
Hey there 20:12, you must have just come off a something, the boat, helicopter or bycicle, I hope ya head don't heal too fast ya might get a combustion. The Police are the responsibility of the Governor, yes we have that position here, and therefore all questions regarding robberies should go to that office's Press Secretary. Didn't they give you the little book on the means of transport you arrived on? Oh my..
Boy you is a Jackass. Where is the police? Bobo, it is our own Caymanian people who breakin in people houses cause they were never taught right and wrong at home when they were growing up and probably saw their parents doing the same thing. And because it is now multi-generational, no one rats on the next as they are all benefiting from the crime. Then they milk government for legal aid and some lawyer goes and does his best to get them off so the cycle can continue. We in a mess you hear me. Until we start teaching them young ones to respect themselves and others, and having some "good" principles about them, it' gonna keep getting "badder and badder" and the police can't baby sit them and their own not talking so what you think?
All a youse previous bloggers who exalt the amount of money spent on the schools and who lap at both government tables when and who is elected remember this. Everyone of us is paying the price for both administrations ya hear. But I can tell ya all na right with the PPM either just you wait and see , just wait and seeee.
Mac it's time to retire. You starting to sound like a broken record and the majority of voters can see right through you. The only problem come 2017, I don't know who I'm going to vote for. My mother always said, we might of gotten the better of the two, but that doesn't mean we got the best.
Go home mac and take aaaahhh whats his name oh yea eugene back to west bay……
Whogene?
Sorry, he already retired. That's the only way he could possibly be collecting two pensions.
What a politician sorry with no memory
He is the smuck that raised them anyhow, who is he to say ANYTHING.
He should have thought about duty cuts when he was "nation building" and cruisung the globe with our money.
And throwing it out the window on lawsuits and private jet rides.
Mac we know that you are the politician that increased the taxes in the first place. But go ahead and confirm what we all know ! You know what they say about remaining silent and being thought a fool………………………,
Bush and Ezzard have both learned from the same book, and know that, 'a lie travels half way round the world before the truth gets its boots on'.
Mr. Mac, does this mean you are going to fund the deficit in duty revenues as a result of these cuts you propose? In fact, I think you should be more than able to handle this small expenditure many times over. Then you would really be Cayman's hero and have truly earned your honourable title.
There needs to be an end to the Property Duty Waiver for status holders – that was designed for natives, but is now costing millions in land fees each year!
there is NO duty waiver for status holders get the facts traight please .. and stop calling us natives !!!
I think you mean the exemption of stamp duty to indigenous Caymanians.
Which is illegal.
Good job mac keep it up!!
When is he going to realise he is an irrelevance?
@Fri, 04/07/2014 – 13:29.
…….when you realised to write a proper sentence….. IRREVALANCE!!!! Are you serious dude or mam?
A good tip is "Don't become a spelling/grammar nazi when you are barely literate".
Now we see why sending a letter by post is considered a barrier to employment. Crayon smudges and this poster is not allowed pens.
When you realised???…Daaaammmmm. Are you serious dude or MA'AM???…Holey proper sentence.
Presumably another product of the government education system – go to the library, find a good dictionary and check whose spelling is correct – fool.
Your first sentence is unwarranted. I am a product of the govt. education system and my spelling is just fine.
So, in your superior education system they taught you to end sentences with dashes rather than full-stops?
You are right bro cause when they voted for the PPM they were brainwashed didn't need to learn how to spell how sad?? Aleast he is making a suggestion and not selling us out to get a overdraft?
15:59 the frightening thing is that there are 80 more seemingly hanging between the two. Lol.
Never.
There is a bird called a goatsucker. In the Caymans there's something called a votesucker.
Cut the living standards & crime will lower!
Didn't he implement the duty increase in the first place? Didn't he ask for the cut a few weeks ago? Didn't the PPM say they would implement a duty cut in January? Why is he talking? Trying to remain relevant, I guess.
Dont you realise that the duty is cut on Diesel; for CUC only and wont be come in affect until January 2015, Another win for CUC,and they just was able raise their rates again the Sweet deal for CUC PPM style.
Typical UDP idiot. If you could read you would understand that I said that the duty would be implemented in January.
Since duty is a passthrough it is actually for the consumer, not CUC. It does not help CUC since it makes electricity more expensive (without CUC gaining any additional profit) and people then tend to consume less.
Mac, you know what else is a huge cost to us consumers, the staggering amounts of money that YOU have wasted in this country, from Boatswain's Beach (70million and counting, 10million per year since 2006), Mike Ryan (6million outstanding duties), GLF (3millon lawsuit), Nation Building Fund (approx 6million with only blocks to show, check BT "church"), Luxury Travel (8million between him and Julianna). That's about 90million wasted by YOU, with nothing but more and more bills each year. YOU were the main one who made the decision on these. So, you can blame Alden all you want, but don't forget yourself ole boy!
What you mentioned is a drop in the bucket, I could add about another $100 million without even thinking and not counting the 'deals' that he has done that will continue to cost us probably another $500 million or more over the next 50 years. Just imagine if he had gone to school, I shudder to think where we would be now.
Billions if you count the effects of the possibly unlawful cabinet status grants.
Did you challenge the status grants? No? Then tough. There is nothing as classless as moaning about "possibly unlawful" status grants. Accept it and move forward Mr Broken Record.
Did you? Do you think they were all legal?
I shudder to think that you went to school sah.
Hey hey so you can count how much did one school cost over 100 million. Three were started at the same time remember the other, two expenditure for them, must have been approx 60 million and the ongoing expenditures of the one standing/open school is approx 8 million p month ? The really knowledgeable people on this subject please enlighten the one track mind sets we seem to have spawned in this ya land. I'm sure there ia vast difference between the two administrations. Oh and don't forget the yet un revealed amount of expenditures when Chucford of the PPm glory was there. Wa I better wake up some people who might remember some more.
The $ 100 million spent on schools, while exorbitant, was partially a result of UDP actions as well as it is my understanding they had modifications done to the original plans which resulted in cost over-runs . In addition that $ 100 million was capital expenditure which would be expensed, to the statement of revenue and expenses, over the estimated "life" of the asset. In respct of the monies spent by McKeeva and Juliana in traveling all over the world, none of that was a capital investment.
Maybe you should also ask why the cost of the CHHS increasedby some 40 million after the UDP took over the project. Then you would have the answer to your original question.
Schools educate people so I'd much rather 100 million to be wasted on education than on things with no tangible returns. The UDP and all of its members should be banned from holding office ever again.
100 million for a school, which the kids are running rampant, the teachers can't teach them because they are distruptive, kids beating teachers up…yep 100 million school was worth every dollar….
It seems that it was more important to build a school that would survive a Cat 5 than to have a school that taught the pupil well. This is probably because the building of such an edifice would win more votes and do whatever it takes to win votes is pretty much PPM strategy number 1. And strategy number 2. In fact it is their only strategy.
School buildings really do NOT have a lot to do with educating people. The buildings at Harvard are quite old and some are even delapidated by Cayman's standard!
Don't forget the schools. That's right, the schools projects that he more than doubled the cost of by cancelling the construction contracts. You can blame PPM all you want, but the fact is that Mac came along in mid-construction, cancelled the contracts, shut down for a year, then gave his buddies the contracts to finish the job, all the while blaming the PPM for the excessive costs. Try to build a house that way and see what happens.
Ole B, I mentioned the schools ole B, so If. I mention them how can forget them. Understand Ole B that the ultramongous designs, studio, star studded kitchens etc etc were not configured by USdP boss man, that snd much more drove up the cosset. You know wa I gon leave you alone with this thought PPM put us in a depression right on the due of a recession whether you or a thousand and twenty two of ona don't want to sa so. I done ole B.
Mac is the tail wagging the dog. Can't you guys please shut him up? It is time for someone in the PPM to grow a pair.
First Mac and the UDP added taxes that crushed the economy – and the PPM opposed it…
Now the PPM is going to crush Mac's motion to remove the taxes that he added…
And around and around we go in our little mad circle in the blue Caribbean Sea…
I need a six pack of Coors Light, cause I'm getting giddy…
Good one Mac! You raise duties and fees, piss away all the money you can, and then give the next Gov't a hard time for not reducing the duties and fees you increased. You are a piece of work fi tru. In the interest of prudent financial management (something Mac would not understand), let's please try to build some reserves for the next rainy day. It will surely come.
He (Big Mac), in his Budget contribution, congratulated Hon Marco Archer on continuing the policy of prudent fiscal management started under his UDP administration.! LOL
I feel Mr. Bush is becoming an excellent leader of the opposition. The longer he stays in that position and points out the errors and mistakes of the previous government the better.
Lets keep him there!
When you are in power you have to sing from a different Sankey. Some will know what I.mean. When you are outside looking in any old hymn book will do. That is for the masses.