Government delegation heading to Spain
(CNS): The deputy premier, who is the minister with responsibility for communications, will be leading a Cayman delegation to Spain for the Global System for Mobile Communications Association Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Juliana O’Connor-Connolly and the team will be leaving the Cayman Islands Friday for the four day conference, which is an annual telecommunications industry event, bringing together mobile telecommunications providers, regulators and policy-makers, officials said.
According to the website it is the “best venue for mobile industry networking, finding business opportunities, and making deals,” where “more than 1,300 companies displaying the cutting-edge products and technology that will define the mobile future.” It also says that the 49,000 people from the 192 countries that attended last year were predominantly from the commercial sector.
The minister will be accompanied by her Executive Aid Paul Leonce, Chief Officer Kearney Gomez, Director of the Information and Communications Technology Authority (ICTA) David Archbold and MLA Cline Glidden. With the premier still in the UK, Rolston Anglin is currently acting premier, so Community Affairs Minister Mike Adam will act as the deputy premier. Officials said O’Connor- Connolly will return to the Cayman Islands on Thursday, 17 February.
See details of conference here
Category: Technology
Could it be because of the huge size of her portfolio that she has to carry familiar retirees with her to help her and this is her feeble attempt to pickup some ill advised knowledge
As a former PE teacher she should be in charge of the Community Affairs ministry and nothing more cause she is out of her depth. It is hightime for BigMac to reshuffle his Cabinerand replace her with someone more competent
This is absolutely wrong – Seriously!
Why don’t we find out when they are flying back and have a huge contingent of the island greet them at the airport to show our "support" of this trip? Maybe that will get noticed…I’m sure Cayman 27 and the print media would love to document the event…
Fed up with this B.S.
we could all go to the airport and give them a big welcome home….. but their return is probably a matter of national security.
I actually don’t know why on earth a delegation is going to this. I’m currently living in Nova Scotia and have friends from two separate companies attending the conference. They, however, are in the tech industry and have products and services to offer. They not only intend on gaining some new customers but have hopes of networking with and developing potential partnerships for expansion. What is the government’s intention on being in Spain? Do they plan buying something (justifiable?) or soliciting companies to come to Cayman? I don’t get it at all.
Pray that they stay over there and the treasury will be laughing with d$$$ars.
So far it has not been possiible to come up with a plausible reason – and more importantly, one that is also beneficial to the country of the Cayman Islands – why a "government delegation" has gone to Spain for this Mobile World Congress. Dare we expect that our Deputy Premier will ensure that, immediately on her (/their) return to Cayman, we the electorate will be given a written, factual and comprehensive report on all aspects of this "…four day conference, which is an annual telecommunications industry event, bringing together mobile telecommunications providers, regulators and policy-makers,…" so that we can determine for ourselves what benefit (and, if any, for whom) there is from yet another out of the blue expensive jaunt to the far reaches of the globe.
In the meantime, all we can do is rely on what information can be found on the international media websites – for example, pasting the link below into your browser will get you the rest of today’s (13 Feb) BBCnews article and may cast a bit more light on the subject:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12337672
" 13 February 2011 Last updated at 08:46 GMT
ByJane Wakefield Technology reporter
Barcelona will be serving up its sixth Mobile World Congress (MWC) this week and it promises as much variety as the tapas bars that the city is more famed for.
Operating systems, content, devices and even chips will all be on the menu as the Spanish city plays host to more than 50,000 visitors.
The guest list will also be an eclectic mix as mobile old-timers rub shoulders with high-profile executives from outside the sector.
Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, Google’s Eric Schmidt as well Twitter’s Dick Costolo and Carol Bartz from Yahoo will all be there. …… "
What an obscene wasteof money. When will this government ever learn? What on earth could possibly justify this expense?
Since the PPM is having their big installment day today – Sat 12, 2011, i was thinking maybe, just maybe – they can pull, "A coup d’état" aka "COUP" on them (UDP) while most are out of town. BUT, am just saying!
Sounds like her trip to Africa last year except this time she is taking more.
Has anyone every heard what she gained from the Africa trip?
a tan?
some frequent flier miles?
yellow fever?
4 pounds?
Hey, by the way, isn’t there a certain number of days a year you have to be on the island, or you lose your status??
The biggest issue we have here is that the 2 top people in the elected government feel that they can do anything they want period, no matter what the people want.
Did anyone look at the cost / benefit ratio for this expensive trip to Spain.
Who on in this select group are experts on mobile communications? What do they hope to achieve?
Is this just one more first class paid vacation for some giovernment members? Another expensive boondoggle?
Perhaps our cash starved government could find a better use for our hard earned cash
It seems CIG representatives get a newsletter entitled:
Where To Go When You Don’t Want To Govern
This week’s hot tip for all you lazy officials with bottomless expense accounts: Barcelona!! (that’s Spain)
– Excuse to use- Some conference or another.
– Beautiful weather.
– Incredible savings on Spanish wine.
– Excellent food and entertainment.
– Fine hotels.
See you there!!! Bring some friends. Party down!!!!
Let’s see….Glidden was in Jersey yesterday and Spain next week looking at cell phones, I wonder WHEN he will come home and WHAT will he do with what he has "learned"? Don’t mix up your notes Cline….we WANT a FULL report!!!
Really, if David Archibold from the ICTA needed to go, fine. If he wanted one representative from the Govt to go who UNDERSTOOD the technology or was going to budget for industry improvements here, fine….but Juliana is wasting tax payer dollars on this meaningless trip. WHAT is she and her assistance suppose to do? Look at pretty cell phones, what a joke!
Did anyone READ what the conference is? It is not about switches, towers, infrastructure, satellite, HSDPA,or Internet…..It is about MOBILE PHONES and mobile networks. (big deal 4G, ooooh, shivers) How will this help Cayman?
Huge waste of time and taxpayers dollars.
wouldnt the telephone company or w/e be more interested in this rather the government cause honestly the government just spending away like they got money to blow and it grows on trees and falls from the sky……..
**There is NO reason for this trip! This is an industry event, not a thing to do with politics. What’s next? Shipping shows? Cruise ship tours?
Do the right thing and cancel this waste of money. Accountability! Someone call the Governor and the UK MPs and STOP THIS!!! PROSECUTE these thieves!!!!
I do NOT want one dime of my tax paid money to fund these !#$^*% jollies.
This is a SLAP IN THE FACE to every voter and resident of these islands. Anyone getting on that plane to Spain should should be ashamed of themselves and beg forgiveness for such transparent indulgent GREEDY actions.
What a huge steaming pile!!! Give me a break. Julianna is just going on a vacation and using this ridiculous excuse to charge it to the peoples purse. I cannot believe that she could rip us off like this will all else that is in need of funding in this country. It is incredulous that these idiots are allowed to trample through this country’s finances with literally no accountability. I would like her or her "office" to publicly address us as to why she / they feel it necessary to send a "delegation" to Spain for a telecommunications conference when…..what?? Is government going to start a telecom business to compete with LIME or Digicel???? This lady is a disgrace, and please dont get me started on her boss!!
Going is one thing but what benefit will some of them gain?
Simon says it will be over their heads and more BXXX SXXX from at least one of them when they come back hoping he can get to stay on past retirement still
Well if she comes back having learnt of the excellent standards and competitive pricing and packages in other nations, and does something to put things right here I’ll applaud her. Cayman has too many monopolies. Its time to open up the market to competition in order to force fairer pricing, better standards, and more competitive and reliable packages. This applies equally to internet service providers and the phone companies here.
The internet service here is appalling regardless of what package you get and with whom. Forget speed tests, what matters is package loss, jitter and ping. Go and test for yourselves at http://www.pingtest.net to find out the real quality of your internet connection and post the results here. I’m sure it will be an interesting read to anyone who knows about ISP performance.
Mine is:
Grade: F – Very poor. Real-time internet application performance will suffer greatly on such a connection.
Package Loss: 28% – Anything more than 0% should cause concern since it could result in poor quality VoIP and stuttering in online games.
Ping: 610 ms – Delayed responses in internet applications would be due to a higher than desired ping. A lower ping value is preferred. A result below 100 ms should be expected from any decent broadband connection.
Jitter: 493 ms – A perfectly stable connection would have no jitter. A lower value is best, but some ping is to be expected over the internet.
And I am not on the cheapest package. I used to be on an expensive package which gave similar results, so I downgraded to the cheaper package I am using now to see if it was any worse. To be honest, the cheaper package performs no worse than the expensive one I used to have so I feel I am making a saving.
Its high time we got the service we pay through the nose for from our current providers rather than being taken advantage of because we have little to no choice of alternative provider.
Sounds like the issue is internally in your home or office mate
wth the Internet remember a chain is only as good as the weakest link.
Sad to say, a lot of wiring was damaged during IVAN. It could even be a problem in your house…flooding from back then is still eroding things now. If you are using LIME a distribution point near your home could need work. Seriously, if little frogs get into the box, their waste corrodes the wires. You do need to call in a fault and the staff is pretty good at identifying the problem. It is not world class high fibre, bur what do you expect for a rock in the middle of the ocean? If you are using Digicel wireless wimax then call their tech team. Logic has an offering and I’m not sure about TeleCayman for residential.
Dear Hmmmm,
YOU should attend. You know more about this than any of the "team". However, this event is not an telecom industry infrastructure conference, it is a TRADE SHOW and has NOTHING to offer a group of uneducated politicians. Not one of them could explain any of the terms you described.
If there WERE a valid conference to look at possibilities to improve Telecoms, then a representative from the ICTA should attend, recognize any world class new technologies or improved standards and then force LIME, TeleCayman, Digicel, and Logic to implement the higher standards under their license agreement.
This is a joke and an affront to all the people of the Cayman Islands. This is a greedy little jolly and it is clear as day that it is a slap in the face to every resident of this country.
Politicians attending a Telecom Trade Show? Nonsense!
21;12….you make an educated and good point. BUT it has nothing to do with reality in The Cayman Islands. First, this delegation will return tanned and rested and nothing will be done or followed through relating to communications. Second, someone somewhere in the CIG, and there are a lot of very capable people, could review this information over the internet, pass onto the deputy and maybe someone could call the CI providers and have a chat. But instead of that, 10’s of thousands of dollars from your countries over draft will be expended on this trip and I’m sure it is first class. (who is included in the delegation?) Third, junkets like this should be reserved for a government official who has completed all their tasks and responsibilities at home.
Let’s face facts. 1) The two leaders of the elected government are failing to address Cayman’s issues. 2) They are not improving the country or the peoples standard of living. 3) They seem to control the will of the rest of the cabinet and MLA’s. 4) Since they took power there has been a focus on inward investment that benefits the few not majority. 5) There have been no new "projects" to assist the economy. In fact we are now re reviewing projects that were announced two years ago. 6) We have a small country, the two leaders should be staying at home and assisting the Minister for Education to rebuild the education system. They should also be assisting/Governing/working with everyone to eradicate crime and the criminals in Cayman. Working with the private sectors to bring back tourism and promote the professional services through a stable, crime free friendly country. We need better health care and insurance. The list is endless.
The two leaders of this country seem to think The Cayman Islands is a world power and their image as a politician must be to act like a power broker. The sad thing is that we the people and the rest of the elected government is standing by and letting this all happen.
Even if it was symbolic what a relief it would be to see a vote of no confidence coming from the majority of the voters through their elected members if the elected members would think about governing the country rather than following leaders who are lost and waiting for trickle down.
Any politician who is NOT aligned with Mr. Bush and Ms O, and shows the people they want to work for the country and the people should be supported by the voters come election time.
The Cayman Islands have a small population compared to others and she has lost her political identity over the past 20 years. We are in no man’s land due to the direction which self serving leaders have pushed the country.
The people of the Cayman Islands have a country and resources, the education and ability to have a crime free, friendly, prosperous harmonious homeland, you the people and politicians for the people need to take back their country.
Slightly off thread, but Interesting test, but my results are not the same as yours. On a Lime medium package and these were my ping test results;
Line Quality – B Very Good
Packet Loss – 0% Excellent
Ping – 63ms
Jitter – 4 ms
So perhaps it is not a big an issue as you may suggest
The two leaders of The Cayman Islands are out of control. People do something. Write CNS, The Compass, your elected members, The Governor, The Queen, call every cabinet member office and complain about the rape of The Cayman Islands. It will not end unless you say I don’t want to put up with this anymore. I cannot imagine how much money has been wasted by Mr. Bush and Ms Julianna.
Lach, i agree. Egypt is just not so far away in terms of turmoil, but the people there have proved that change can occur, or even if that is not sustainable, that the world will tak enotice. cayman, you have run out of feet to shoot yourself in. FFS, grow a pair and stand up for yourselves.
Where is the Auditor General on this? Calling all UK expats, SOMEONE must know this man, ask him to take a look at this page and then ask him to find the regulations under the Queen that prohibits govt employees stealing and apply himself to stop this horrible waste of money.
I recall US Senators losing their jobs over frivolous jollies. The UK MUST have similar responsibility laws for MPs….how do we stop this?
Our MLAs are out of control and robbing us blind with contracts to buddies and lining their own pockets for pleasure.
There is NO reason for Julianna (and a TEAM) to go to a MOBILE PHONE NETWORK CONFERENCE, none, none, none!!!
I have no idea who “executive aid” (sic) Paul Leonce is but can anyone tell me what Kearney Gomez would be doing there, other than checking out cowboy boots made of Spanish Leather? No wonder he didn’t want to retire last year when he hit 60, the mandatory civil service retirement age.
This is a freebie junket for the boys and girls at taxpayers’ expense..just like Moscow and Kenya. Did they travel economy class?
Will we learn and vote differently at the next election? Not likely and definitely not on the Brac.
We can only pray that this is the last trip for many of them at Government’s expense.
"executive aid" (sic) Paul Leonce…is none other than her "Bodyguard/bag carrier/ Yessama’am/ gopher…..
hope is getting paid a standby allowance … or at least a “stand up” allowance
What does one do to transition from security guard to "executive aid" in such a short time?
Sat 8:54: I can’t imagine.
Paul Leonce was the “driver” assigned to her by the police.
This really shows just how far out of touch with the common people she is, when she thinks that it is OK to spend exhorbitant amounts of our money to take her driver to Barcelona just to carry her bags for her. She also took him to the Parliamentary Conference in Kenya, and since there were no repercussions she probably figured it was fine to do it again.
We are making the Turks & Caicos politicians look like saints.
Yep what are retirees doing going on conferences period except blocking others
There should be a rule that prevents such trips
They know it is their last trip to the free lunch buffet lunch so they are going to load up da plate. You see?
Entry, tickets, food, hotel, taxi for 4 people.
Estimated expense: 40.000 CI
The Premier is away… the Deputy is Away if the country can do without them in office then I suggest that we get rid of politicians they are just a waste of money from day one. They travel the world, full their pockets, and get rich for screwing up the conntry . Can you guess how much money we would save. Just a though
They are all useless. Their bubble is going to pop soon, very soon.
Digicel is sending one person, not from Cayman, from their whole company… Lime isnt sending anyone!!! We are sending 5 people …. seriously ? Business class to Barcelona, hotel, food, etc. I think it went something like this…
Deputy Premier: "Hey there’s this thing in Barcelon next week, anyone want to go"?
CG: "Yeah, i was thinking of starting a phone service company, I’ll go"
DP: "Well, we better take some other officials to make it look good"
Digicel is in 24 countries, sending ONE person makes sense. I’m sure someone from one of the 17 countries that LIME works in is going, we just don’t know about it on our tiny rock. Of course they should go…it is a commercial industry cell phone event, not a government regulatory event. The phone companies would attend a mobile conference, even maybe someone from the ICTA, but politicians? This is a junket for them, nothing more and no amount of political spin will change that.
Ms. Julie can you please carry me becasue I have always wanted to see those parts of the world but now that my salary has been cut and cant afford to pay my bills every month. And it is the people of this country money that una wasting shouldnt u all take us once in a while instead of the same ole bunch all the time HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
Are there any other leaders of any country attending this function?
At least McKeeva’s trips make political sense. How is this trip useful or beneficial to the people of this country?
Is this a joke? Have they no senseof shame?
C&W and Digicel both operate GSM networks, but I doubt very much that either of them found it necessary to send anyone to this conference.
David Archibold is probably the only person who will understand anything that is said at the conference, but it is totally irrelevant to his work, and knowing the man I doubt very much that he agrees with this waste of HIS time and government funds.
CNS, since FOI is too late and “after the fact”, can you contact the Ministry to see if there in any truth to the rumour on the street that they are ALL traveling First Class? I think the Minister’s attention needs to be drawn to rules laid down for UK Parlimentarians with regards to travel.
7.5 The MP should always have regard to whether any particular journey is necessary and, if it is, the most cost-effective way to undertake it. In particular, whatever means of purchased transport is used, consideration should be given to whether potential savings to public funds could be made through the use of concessionary fares such as season tickets, advance purchase or off-peak travel.
Here we go again.More time wasting and money being flushed down the drain.Could they not do w/out travelling all that way?Lets get a handle on this time wasting and spending folks.Maybe they will take a course in Spanish dancing while there so they can continue to "dance"around all our problems.What a waste of time "Jeez"
WOW — what a ridiculous waste of time and money! What is the reason provided for the trip?
Again – wow. I could possibly see someone from Lime, Digicel, or TeleCayman goingbut this lot, you’ve got to be kidding me!
Here are the prices for attending the conference:
http://www.mobileworldcongress.com/registration/passes_and_prices.htm
Here’s the conference schedule:
The 2011 Mobile World Congress will be held 14-17 February, in Barcelona, Spain. This year’s Congress will include:
The only thing I can think of is that she is looking for a new cell phone.
the people of cayman deserve everything they get for electing the likes of mckeeva bush and juilianna oconnor…… xxxxxxxx
sad thing is they will be both re-elected next time around too….zzzzz
"sad thing is they will be both re-elected next time around too….zzzzz".
Respectfully you need to change this attitude. You can make a difference. If you can vote you need to find someone else who can vote and feels like you and find better leaders and MLA’s for Cayman. Then you find some else and they do as well and we all find and vote for change and they won’t be re-elected.
Time to step up…..
More "fact finding"…
Leff Ju Ju alone. She is obligated to ensure that the highest paid Civil Servants have the newest gadgets to play with. That is her job so all unna need try hush.
God shr is worst than Bush
somebody wants a new Iphone, and somebody always gets what they want. Thanks Cayman!
WHY?
This country is enduring the most serious levels of crime in its history and the Deputy Premier prefers to go on a week-long, all-expenses paid trip to the beautiful city of Barcelona, Spain.
Clearly, this sends a strong message to the electorate that the Deputy Premier would rather indulge in what is likely to be a gastronomical "jolly" than deal with the very real and very serious issue of crime.
"Actions speak louder than words"
CANCEL THE TRIP AND DO THE RIGHT THE THING: THE JOB THAT YOU WERE ELECTED FOR.
What is the Business Case for so many going on this trip? I can accept that a representative from ICTA should attend..but not sure what value the others can add…especially if “49,000 people from the 192 countries that attended last year were predominantly from the commercial sector”!
Quite correct, there is no business case for the politicians, and in fact there isnt even a case for the ICTA man, this is a trade conference for people doing new and interesting things with and to cell phones. It is extraordinary that probably $50000 or more is spent without any purpose. The least likely to learn anything from it is the deputy PM, however, I recall that she always did like shopping trips, and she will of course be able to visit the incredible Gaudi cathedral !
hey! I thought she was building the gaudy cathedral on the brac?!