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CIG to use spending muscle
(CNS): The finance minister has said that government will soon be doing a better job of utilizing its spending power to cut costs. During his address last week in the Legislative Assembly on government’s Strategic Policy Statement outlining its future fiscal plans, Marco Archer said that his ministry would be leading an initiative to “leverage the immense buying power of the Cayman Islands Government”. Sticking to his theme of fiscal prudence, he said the introduction of a centralized procurement system would help to keep core government expenses down. Keen to rein in spending on goods and services, Archer said he wanted to optimize every public dollar spent.
“To ensure public sector expenditures remain in-check and further enhance the prudent management of public sector finances, the government will be taking steps to improve its procurement regime,” Archer stated.
The news comes more than a year after Deputy Governor Franz Manderson announced plans for the creation of a government procurement department headed up by a procurement director, based on recommendations made by the auditor general. In September last year Manderson told the Public Accounts Committee that Cabinet had given the go-ahead and budgeted some $350,000 to create the specialized office that would deal with everything from developing new laws about the procurement process to establishing business cases for public projects.
Last week Archer said that government was taking steps to improve its procurement regime and the Finance and Economics Ministry had recently concluded the recruitment of the director of the Central Procurement Office.
He said, “Standardization in specification and policies are expected to yield numerous benefits, such as reduced costs, reduced future maintenance on vehicles, machinery and equipment, greater transparency in the procurement process and greater compliance by private sector merchants wishing to do business with the government.”
Pointing to the need to keep operating expense in check, Archer said the ministry would move “swiftly to develop the policies and procedures that will be used going forward to ensure that the citizens of this country receive optimum value for every dollar spent”.
He said he expected public spending would remain relatively static over the next three years with an increase of just 1% between the current 2014/15 expenditure budget and the SPS financial targets for the 2017/18 year. The minister also noted that the tight spending regime was before any other efficiency gains that may result from the implementation of any of the Ernst & Young report recommendations for cutting the public sector.
Despite inflation, keeping government expenditures constant was a result of increasing efficiency, he said.
Last year the deputy governor said the centralized procurement department would address the numerous concerns that had been raised by the Office of the Auditor General over how government manages procurement.
Manderson said at the time that the recruitment process for the procurement director had already started. He had told the PAC that the future goal in managing projects would be to get things right from the start, and it will be this office that will establish the business case for any project before it goes to tender. The plan at the time was to include the Central Tenders Committee in the new department, which was to be renamed the Procurement Committee.
See related story on CNS: Procurement office in works
Crown closes case against Ebanks for Bise murder
(CNS): Visiting UK counsel, Simon Russell Flint QC, closed the murder case against Leonard Antonio Ebanks on behalf of the director of public prosecutions Monday, three weeks after the trial opened. Ebanks is accused of murdering Swiss Banker, Frederic Bise, as part of a joint enterprise with Chad Anglin back in February 2008. The crown’s case agaisnt Ebanks depends heavily on alleged confessions the West Bay man made to two different women some two years apart. With no further live witnesses, the crown concluded by reading to the jury a list of agreed facts about the case, from the details of how Bise's car was burned to the conviction of Anglin in April this year.
Anglin was seen on CCTV with Bise at a local West Bay bar and witnesses saw the two men leave together hours before his body was discovered in the boot of his own burned out vehicle parked in the driveway of the house he was living in at the time of his murder.
Although Anglin’s DNA was also found on cigarettes at Bise's home and in his car, no forensic evidence has been submitted against Ebanks and there are no phone records to show any contact that night between Ebanks and Anglin.
Immigration employee suspended from job
(CNS): Government officials have confirmed that a senior member of the immigration department has been suspended from her job as a result of allegations that she has not complied with labour and immigration laws in connection with her own private businesses. Although government has not named the person concerned, CNS can confirm that Kimberley Davis, the director of boards, is under investigation. Davis is responsible for the administration of the department’s various boards, including the Work Permit Board, the Business Staffing Plan Board and the status and residency boards. The Home Affairs Ministry did not reveal any details in an email confirming the investigation at the weekend, as it said the enquiry was still in its early stages.
However, Davis has been on required leave with full pay since early November, when the formal internal investigation began. The Anti-Corruption Commission confirmed it was not involved in the probe into the senior civil servant but Wesley Howell, the deputy chief officer in the premier’s home affairs ministry, said that an investigation into alleged conduct of a staff member of the Immigration Department who have may breached the laws of the Cayman Islands was underway, but he did not state if the police were involved.
“As the matter is at an early investigative stage, the ministry is not at liberty to provide the public with details of the investigation nor is it in a position to state at this time whether any criminal charges will ultimately arise as a result of the investigation,” Howell told CNS via email. “However, the ministry can confirm that a decision was made in the best interest of the civil service, to place the relevant staff member on leave during the course of the investigation, to ensure the smooth running of the services that the Immigration Department provides to the public at large.”
The allegations against Davis are believed to relate to her own permit applications and her compliance with health insurance and pension payments.
The probe comes at a time when the immigration department’s board continues to come under fire for the approval of permits at a time when significant numbers of locals remain unemployed and in circumstances where many believe the boards are not properly scrutinizing the applications and allowing employers to manipulate the system in favour of cheap labour over Caymanian job applicants.
Students arrested following ganja bust
(CNS): A number of UCCI students were among a group of five young people arrested near the university last week following a police drug bust. An RCIPS spokesperson said that three girls and two boys, all aged between 17 and 22, were arrested in the bushy area between Burger King on Walkers Road and the college campus in George Town on Thursday around lunchtime. It is not clear if the young people were attempting to sell drugs and police have not revealed the quality of ganja recovered during the raid, which took place around 1pm. The youngsters were arrested on suspicion of possession of ganja and a drug related utensil. All five were bailed to return to GTPS at a later date.
Syed struggles to find lawyer as trial looms
(CNS): The former president of the UCCI, who is charged with stealing more than a half million dollars from the college, is struggling to find a lawyer despite being three months away from his trial. Hassan Syed, who voluntarily returned to Cayman earlier this year after he was arrested in Switzerland, told the court Friday that he had contacted almost a dozen lawyers to represent him but had failed to secure the services of any of them. Syed was on the run for almost five years after allegations came to light that he had used a government credit card to buy jewellery and pay for lavish weekends away. In October he parted company with James Austin Smith, the lawyer originally representing him.
Syed told the court he had come back to face the music because of a guarantee that his human rights would be protected by the governor. However, the former UCCI boss and IT expert implied Friday that they were somehow being breeched. Syed also said that he had not received any directions from the crown about the evidence against him or the necessary papers.
The court heard that the papers had, however,been served on Syed's former lawyer, Austin-Smiith, who was in the court and able to assist. He confirmed that he did have the documentation, but for reasons which were not revealed to the public courtroom, Austin-Smith said he “was not keen” to give them to the defendant, having come off- record. He said, however, that he had spoken to another local defence attorney, Richard Barton, who, according to Syed, was considering taking the case.
Toyin Salako, the crown’s counselin the case, noted that the circumstances were all rather unusual and denied any breech of Syed’s rights. She said the crown had served the necessary papers but the defendant’s issues with lawyers were his to resolve as a trial date was set for 13 March, a date which the crown was not willing to move. She noted that despite facing some thirteen counts, he had not yet answered the charges on the indictment.
Given what appeared to be an impasse, the judge asked the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to file a new set of appropriate documents to Syed, who was bailed to return to the court on 5 December, in order to confirm new representation. Justice Charles Quin, who was presiding over the Grand Court mentions Friday, urged Syed to begin reading the papers as soon as he received them and secure the services of a lawyer.
Bank robber suspects fail to make bail
(CNS): Three men acquitted in the Cayman National Bank robbery case who were seeking bail Friday remained in jail following a hearing before Justice Malcom Swift. David Tamasa and George Mignot, who have been in prison for more than two years, were refused bail, even though they were acquitted of the bank heist by the Court of Appeal last month. The men are now scheduled to face a new trial starting on 28 January and were remanded in custody until then. Meanwhile, a third man convicted of being the decoy in the case will have another chance to apply for bail after his hearing was adjourned. Rennie Cole was serving a nine year sentence for his part in the armed bank heist.
He is a Jamaican national who was in Cayman on a work permit when he was charged with the robbery.
He was convicted of being the decoy who distracted the bank guards ahead of the robbers bursting into the bank but he was also acquitted along with three other men by the court of appeal last month and will now also face a new trial in January.
Ex-cop guilty of murder
(CNS): A former RCIPS police officer, who was on the payroll until last week, has been convicted of murder in Jamaica and jailed for 25 years. Tyrone Findlay was found guilty alongside another former Jamaican police officer, Leonard Lindsay, of shooting and killing a manin 2010 when they were serving in the Jamaican police force in the district of Manchester and supposedly investigating a robbery. Findlay was recruited into the RCIPS in 2011 and in a shocking revelation it is understood that he was serving in the armed unit, despite the allegations. He was formally suspended from the RCIPS just a few months later on full pay, but despite enquiries made by CNS to the RCIPS about the issue, we have received no comment from the local police as to how this came about.
Other police sources, however, told CNS that Findlay started working here as a full time police officer earlier this year, even though he was facing murder charges for shooting Anthony ‘Tony’ Richards in Alligator Pond on New Year’s Day 2010 while on duty, in what was said to be an execution style killing.
Although the RCIPS has not responded to enquiries made by CNS, David Baines, the police commissioner, did speak to The Cayman Compass and told them that Findlay had received “exemplary references from senior law enforcement officials in Jamaica” prior to being hired in Cayman. The top cop also denied knowing about the charges when Findlay was recruited to the local armed unit and given access to a gun.
However, once the revelations about the killing came to light and Findlay was charged, he was suspended and remained on the payroll with the RCIPS even though he had been on staff less than three months. Baines told the local newspaper that the government was obliged to continue paying him. Having been suspended from duty just two months after he was recruited here, he was eventually put back behind a desk this year in a non-operational role until his trial, according to Baines. This was said to have been an effort to get some value for the public purse, which had been paying the officer not to work for almost three years.
Baines did not say why the officer could not be sacked in the wake of the charges against him, given the circumstances and the fact that he was still in his probationary period at the time.
Fourth man was with missing local fishermen
(CNS): Police have confirmed that 49-year-old Donald Jennison from Flankers, Saint James, in Jamaica was on board a boat that went missing in September, as well as three Caymanian men whose names were made public previously. Police renewed their appeal for information Friday after more than two months with no sightings of the West Bay residents Alton Eddie Philips, Ray Kennedy Smith and James Michael Ebanks Snr, who left Cayman in a yellow 28 foot canoe. The police now believe that the vessel departed from the North West Point area of West Bay sometime between 7 and 11pm on Friday 12 September. The boat was powered, it is believed, by an 85 HP Yamaha engine.
The men were scheduled to return Sunday 14 September but never appeared, and on Monday 15 September a family member of one of the boaters made a report to police. Officers from RCIPS Joint Marine Unit (JMU) notified Port Authority and ships within the shipping lanes transiting the Cayman area.
The US and Jamaican coast guards were also notified, in addition to Interpol, through which notices were sent throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America. Searches by JMU in Cayman waters were done using drift pattern calculations based on the currents but the boat was not seen.
RCIPS officers also spent four days in Jamaica conducting enquires alongside the local police about the missing men and the RCIPS is now fairly confident that Jennison was also on board with the three Caymanians.
Police said that investigations to date have not revealed any evidence of their whereabouts.
The RCIPS continues to meet with the families and are still trying to determine what may have happened to their love ones.
Anyone who may have seen the boaters depart the North West Point area in their vessel on Friday 12 September during the stated times is asked to contact Inspector Ian Yearwood, Sergeant Richard Scott or PC Adrian Clarke on 949- 7710.
Watson aims to throw out case
(CNS): Updated: Canover Watson has made an application to the courts for a dismissal hearing regarding the ten charges against him, all of which he has denied. Appearing in the Grand Court dock on Friday morning for the first time following his brief appearance in the Summary Court, the former HSA chair told the court via his attorney, Ben Tonner, that he had made an application for all the charges against him to be dropped. Following the court appearance, Watson's attorney issued a short statement to the media in which he claimed that no evidence had been presented to support the charges. Tonner said the charges against Watson were all transmitted by a magistrate Tuesday without any "examination of the merits of the case".
As a result notice was filed of a dismissal hearing set for later this month.
"The application to dismiss has been scheduled for hearing before the Grand Court on 22 December 2014," Tonner stated. "To date Mr Watson has not been served with any indictment or with the evidence in support of the charges laid. Mr Watson has stated that as a consequence of the charges laid against him his liberties have been restricted and his reputation unjustly tarnished. Mr Watson has reiterated that the charges laid against him are baseless and that he looks forward to clearing his name and dismissing all charges at
the hearing."
Watson has been charged with six counts of money laundering as well as fraud, breach of trust, conflict of interest and failing to disclose a pecuniary interest.
The allegations relate to a more than $11 million contract awarded by the HSA Board when Watson was chair to a company for a new health care card payment system for the government’s hospital. Watson is accused of having a connection to the company awarded the contract and to have gained a financial interest, relating to a sum of some US$169,000.
Mother accused of killing child appears in court
(CNS): Tamara Butler (37) made her first appearance in Cayman’s Grand Court on Friday morning but the woman who is accused of killing her six year old daughter Bethany Butler did not answer the murder charge agaisnt her. The director of public prosecutions told the court that there was still forensic evidence outstanding and the defence also noted that they were waiting on the results of a psychiatric evaluation. Butler remained silent as she sat in the dock before she was remanded in custody for a further three weeks until 19 December.