Ozzie: Caymanians strangers in own country
Osbourne Bodden, Minister of Community Affairs, Youth and Sports, in the Legislative Assembly
(CNS): The community affairs minister described Caymanians as being strangers in their own land who are mistreated in the business environment by expatriate bosses who don’t care about their advancement or the successful development of the country. One of many MLAs who spoke on a private member’s motion last week in the parliament calling for a legislative review to remove stumbling blocks to Caymanian development, especially in the offshore sector, Osbourne Bodden said he believed locals were suffering in a discriminatory, foreigner-dominated, commercial environment.
In a speech that took aim at his own government’s policies and sounding more like an opposition member than a government front-bencher, Bodden implied that the current Cabinet in which he serves was not tackling the fundamental problems, and even that his own ministry had not come to grips with the challenges of poverty.
Clearly at odds with the premier’s position that business is not all bad, Bodden told his colleagues in the LA that, as community affairs minister, he saw how local people suffer every day because they cannot get jobs and are marginalised by expat bosses when they can.
“When people come here they come here to look out for themselves and come to make a living. It is not in their interest to look out for us,” he said, as he accused those in the more recent wave of expat immigration of being entirely short-term in their outlook.
The minister warned of growing social decay because of foreigners in senior positions, here for a good time before moving on, who are blocking the upward mobility of capable local workers, who are “busting their heads on a concrete ceiling”.
Bodden said he was seeing people’s pain every day.
“Right now, as the minister in charge of social services, I see the pain and deal with the pain, day in and day out, of our people without jobs, without food on their table, can’t pay bills,” he said. “I‘m not blaming it all on the people who come here — don’t get me wrong — but I am saying there is hurt in this country; there are people who need jobs,” he said, adding that not all the unemployed were unemployable.
Good employees were being made redundant and were unable to find work again, he said.
“Why is this? They have done nothing wrong but work hard … and given good service …. but these new folk that come now don’t know them,” Bodden told MLAs, implying that the increase in the number of expat workers was enabling them to push out Caymanians.
“The Caymanian is a stranger in his own country,” he said. “That’s a very dangerous road to go down on.” Saying that local people should be allowed to make a living, he said, “We need to see more locals at the table, not under it waiting for the crumbs.”
The minister said the Dart Group was “gobbling up the most talented Caymanians” and queried why other major businesses were not doing the same. He asked why those not supporting locals wanted to live behind bars and alarm systems and have “our people robbing and burglarising the place down” because they were not being given a chance.
“Our laws say clearly what it is — Caymanians first,” he said. “I don’t know if we need to change the name back to the Caymanian Protection Board …Would that make a difference?” he asked, claiming that since it became the immigration board, everything “went upside-down”.
The minister said again that government should not be balancing the budget on the backs of future generations of workers with work permit fees. Permits should not be granted with the frequency that they are and bosses should be encourage to pay locals more and stop importing cheap labour, he said, as he pointed to the growing poverty in the Cayman Islands.
“We can’t have it to where social services is bursting at the seams because you have too much poverty in county. Right now it is at bursting point and we have to do everything we can to reduce the volume of spending in this area,” Bodden said about his own portfolio.
“People who come here these days don’t have a clue where the Cayman Islands came from,” he said, comparing them to those that came in the early years who meant well and helped the development. “There are people who come here today purely for selfish reasons and they could really care less. They are here for the buck … and what it offers them.”
“Something is wrong and Caymanians hear it. We feel the suffering. We have to change the way we are going about things,” he said, adding that if the business community, and the legal profession in particular, did not do it voluntarily, government would have to mandate it, as he challenged the idea put forward by the premier that putting pressure on businesses would drive them away.
“We have a good product but if we don’t take care of the people they are going to mash up the product,” he said, as he called on the business community to take care of and promote local workers.
The minister said the country needed to pause as Cayman had developed so quickly that it had left people behind, but he suggested it was not too late. The minister said he would fight for the people. Expecting he would be “”beaten to death” in the press for what he said, Bodden lamented why defending “your own yard” should get him “beat up”.
Bodden suffered public condemnation some twelve months ago in the ‘Ozziegate scandal’, when he had a very public and abusive confrontation with his former chief officer, Jennifer Ahearn, when he was the health minister. Bodden referred to the senior civil servant, who is Caymanian but originally from Canada, as a “piece of f^*!ing driftwood” during a row over a telephone bill.
Category: Politics
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/03/europe/salah-abdeslam-cold-trail-paris-attacks/index.html
We need to stop importing so much Filipinos and Indian they are to cheep and spend no money with the small business .at the Jamaican spend money locally so does the people from the Bay islands of Honduras
11.00 that may be the case but most of them can spell properly and are not racist. What’s your excuse?
I think this really shows the intelligence of the MLA’s.
I am sorry but all Caymanians cannot be brain surgeons, attorneys or airline pilots. Firstly you need an education something that is distinctly lacking here in Cayman, how many students graduate each year with a first class honours degree from a respected university? I should imagine it is less than five if that. In the UK it is probably in the hundreds and out of that probably only 10 % maybe less go onto these types of careers and only reach the top of the tree when they are in there 40-50’s. So first Mr. Minister spend some money on your education identify your top students mentor them, get them into top universities on ability and show them a career path if they are good enough on ability they can reach the tops but don’t expect to be a partner or brain surgeon at 19 is just don’t happen, get real!!!
By the time someone has achieved a first they have been coached into how to game the UK school and university system for 20 years. They’ve also grown up in that country and understand how its people and systems work. Caymanians who go there for university face many disadvantages. If you want to hold them to the same standards, give them the same tools. Set up ‘crammer’ courses for them to get intensive refreshers in their exam subjects just before the exams are taken. Show them how to take notes properly so that they will be able to organise and learn all of the subject matter thrown at them in university. I didn’t see a single student in university in London who had any adjusting to do, they just carried on doing as they had been trained to do, studying and answering exam questions the same way they always had, except they also drank a lot and somehow all got the grades to suit their ambitions even if it was just by the skin of their teeth. Caymanians don’t have these skills, they don’t even know that they need them, they don’t realise how fast the world is moving underneath them. Time to call this what it is: an unfair ‘big country’ advantage that just continues into the workplace where it becomes the justification for everything.
8.16 Have you not just answered my question and admitted the failings of the education system. There is no coaching there is no forward planning to send bright students to university. And yet again there is the hint of bias in your post against Caymanians the world does not owe you a job. Look at all the other overseas students at university odd how they seem to succeed. They don’t have to go to England where as you seem to imply they are discriminated against. what about the USA or other high achieving respected universities in the Caribbean.
This country needs to sort out its education and work ethos of its youth…. And stop blaming others just take some responsibility of your destiny
Well said @ 8:16am!
You Sir are sadly mistaken. Why is it that children Expat and Caymanian going through the private schools here are able to produce stellar University results? I suspect that the CIG operated public schools are spending more per pupil than St. Ignatius or Cayman Prep, yet every Caymanian I know that can afford to send their children to those schools is looking to do so.
I did get top results at a private school here and went to a top university, but I was not equipped like many others were to handle the volume of material or the sink-or-swim culture that you get used to pretty quickly at a large UK school doing 12 GCSEs/5 A levels with hundreds or thousands of other people.
That’s why all those who want to have the advantage are sending their children to Prep… more English children there
Education and paper qualifications are usually just the beginning of what secures a slot for the initial first round interview process. Mental maturity is critical as well. Showing up for an interview is helpful, and during any probation period (ie. full day, and not counting sick days and mumbling Labour Law verse), in work attire (leave the brass jewelery and gangland bandanas at home please) with a Positive Mental Attitude (ie. not wanting to kill more senior expat mentors in their sleep), coming-in with good and truthful references (ie. omitting the prison time recently served not so good), working well with others (including expats), are also critical in building a functional cohesive business team. It is impossible to train someone who is chronically absent, thinks they know more than their mentor, or mentally fantasizes about taking violent retribution on the universe for the Status Grants of 2003, or some other crack-fuelled pontification from Rooster’s Super Tuesday. These are what we call, “self-limitors”.
To UK Driftwood: at least give the ones that do graduate at the top of their class, go to college or university, get a masters degree, a chance to prove themselves. Not because we are a Caymanian, that automatically makes us stupid or incapable of performing in a professional manner. However, it is very irritating to know that we are being judged in such a way only because we are Caymanians. Give us equal rights also!!!
Sadly but many of those who “do graduate at the top of their class, go to college or university, get a masters degree, a chance to prove themselves”
are on the front pages now and not in a good way.
To11:40 – Is it possible to give me an accurate percentage, or is this just hot air as usual? If you think we are all misfits, then I will challenge you to hard facts. Sounds quite racists making such a point!! Just remember: the stone that the builder refused, became the head corner stone!!!
I hope our representatives wrap their minds around comments like these from expats. During the campaign of the last election a few new candidates, who by the way got elected, assured us that education for Caymanians would be at the top of their list of priorities. Programs like the Nation Building Scholarships and the Tourism Scholarships they said would remain but only made better. Needless to say these scholarships were the first casualties of the present government. One was scrapped in its entirety and the other has in essence become a grant, as the average amount of $10,000 per annum could hardly be considered a scholarship. You our representatives have now caused a UK Driftwood to insult us with this comment: “Firstly you need an education something that is distinctly lacking here in Cayman, …….” . If more attention and money was invested in educating and retooling our Caymanian people and less spent on attracting the likes of this UK Driftwood we would have more than half of the problem solved.
It’s not just education that needs to improve, it’s social services too. Teachers can only do so much.
If the children come to school hungry, tired, irritable, lack motivation and have a very unstable background they are not capable of learning anything! For some families here and abroad, it’s a vicious cycle of having poor attitude to education and work. If a child’s parents do not care about working why should they?
Social services need to be expanded so there are more people on the ground. They need to make it compulsary, that those parents who are not caring for their children, have to go to parenting classes and are given the support they need. Parents are offered the much needed help here, but they choose not go. They should be told they have to go or risk losing their child. But then social services can’t do that because there aren’t enough foster parents and there aren’t enough foster parents because they don’t get any support once they have volunteered to foster. Social services are a mess and who’s the head of that? Mr Ozzy! But I’m just driftwood, working for the betterment of Caymanian children, so what do I know?
clearly immigration has the ability to help this situation by establishing clearer policies for considering work permits. However their temporary leadership or acting chief clearly is above over his head. Time to get some real leadership in place and take care of business as there is so much more immigration can do to help Caymanians.
Ask not what Immigration can do for Caymanian, ask what Caymanians can do…
Yes, I hear that a lot as well. The government scholarship is an excellent deal and many take advantage of it as soon as they get status. Personally, I do not think status holders should be able to get these scholarships; with the average annual cost of university being $40,000, that we should help our own more.
Why are government scholarships going to status holders? This is absurd! It is so unfair that people can leave their home countries only to come here and receive the same or better treatment than the Native Caymanians after only 8 years. It’s ridiculous and it needs to STOP!
Everyday Caymankind racism.
Status holders are Caymanians, like it or not, it doesn’t matter. And yes you are a racist. They probably get it because they are the only people who qualify. The low level of your comment would back that up.
What about the children of status holders (still classified by many as “Paper Caymanians”) that were born here – they didn’t leave their home country are they not entitled to them as well?
It is hard to see why scholarships should fund education at US institutions when the applicants can easily obtain a UK passport and fund themselves through the UK loan scheme.
I was told by one parent they could not expect their children to do that because it is too cold in England.
Perhaps if they stopped giving scholarships to Mickey Mouse University in Tampa there would be sufficient funding for those who are actually intelligent enough to pursue legitimate tertiary education overseas. UCCI and ICCI will suffice for the remainder.
We could also fund and staff UCCI appropriately then so it could be better than __________ (insert name of questionable U.S. school here) that a large number of Caymanians seem to attend.
Tampa, the 25th best college. In Florida. Beneath 17 colleges I had never heard of and a couple that I only knew because they had football or basketball teams.
Osbourne is complaining about recent shot-term viewing expats. This is what he wanted with the term limits, of course kicking out expats after 7 years will mean they save for their future elsewhere and not buy homes.
You treat them like mercenaries, and you are surprised when some act like them. You reap what you sow
The Caymanians tend to blame everything on anyone else but them selves, it apparently is never fault.
Bad schools, the expats didn’t force them to invest in their youth, bloody expats
and as for descrimenation, we gel labeled fi’ng driftwood by Caymanian leaders.
The attitudes that SOME expats come with is that they are superior and they shouldn’t have to change for non-whites. That’s a fact. To say it ain’t so is to ignore what is happening in the USA, the U.K., and Europe.
Times change people don’t so easy.
point proven, nothing is ever a Caymanians fault, always an excuse. It is a sign of classic narcissism.
Look carefully at the deeds of some rich, white Caymanian families over the years and how they sold their “brethren” out.
Actually black and mixed families have as well, the political class is also to blame. Interestingly the local paper was bashed to high heaven in these comment sections for saying corruption was rampant in Cayman.
THE FIRST THING TO DO IS STOP THE 45 HOUR WORK WEEK FROM BEING LEGAL AND MAKE IT ONLY 40 HOURS. 45 HOURS A WEEK WHICH MEANS 6 DAYS A WEEK IS SLAVERY! ABOLISH SLAVERY!
Then you might have more Caymanians interested in working in their jobs and not taking so much sick days off. 45 hours a week, which is 6 days a week, is just sickening! Not even in the US do they demand 6 days a week of people, in the US it’s 40 which is 5 days.
The next thing is to raise the minimum wage to $10 per hour (the Cayman Islands one of the World’s most expensive cost of livings to reside in), then Caymanians would also be more interested to work, and it would deter people from bringing in imported poverty foreign labour (who send all their money earned to their homeland’s economy and take it out of the Cayman economy) which makes the whole island one big poverty riddled ghetto. 15 people living in a 2 bedroom apartment. Little nasty disgusting tenament room rentals turning what could be decent family homes into tenement ghettos.
The Government doesn’t even monitor rental rooms and rentals in this island. Renting is under the radar, the Landlords don’t pay any taxes or pensions, they are not held accountable to provide proper and healthy accommodations, no one doesn’t even know who are all the Landlord’s in this island, it is the most illegal but legal business in the Cayman Islands is being a Landlord, and no accountability of healthy living conditions. Some just plain nasty living conditions to the cheap imported foreign poverty labour.
So the average Caymanians lose out on the jobs that don’t require college degrees because of the foreign imported poverty labour, and the foreign imported poverty labour lives in nasty conditions that create lots of tenements and ghettos in the island because of greedy sickening illegal but legal Landlords/Slumlords.
The Government only wants to take care of the rich people and rich investors. So there can be no solution because The Government doesn’t care about all the rest.
The rich investors love to only pay $6 per hour labor and glad to work people 45 hours a week, and even so work them 70 hours a week with no overtime pay.
Disgusting. Period.
I wish this Island luck in solving this problem. Greed is at the control, and once greed remains at the control there will be no solution.
What the rich investors see as progress, is actually destruction to all the average people, it eliminates the middle class sector and pushes them down into the lower poor class sector.
But that’s what the rich investors want, to be their own little Gods and everyone serve them!
Good Luck with a solution! You would have to banish greed to create a solution. The rich investors buy out Government to suit their desires.
It’s all a bunch of corruption.
And the Lodge plays a big role in all of this.
Jesus is the only answer for peace of mind to both rich and poor.
Thank God for Jesus & Salvation & Eternal Life in Glory, the only true hope!
What are you talking about? The work week is 35 hours by law.
Back in the real world, we are competing against other firms where workers are doing 60-70 hour weeks.
This is the route of the problem, in the office some Caymanians will work just a 45 hour week and wonder why they are past over when their expat co-workers are working 12 hours a day, 5 days a week, not because they have to, but because that is what you have to do in the real world to get ahead and get promoted.
Wow! You need to come back into reality. 45 hours a weeks is actually a pretty standard work week in North America, even on the light side if you’re working in a professional environment (try 70-80 hours a week – I know, I did it). If you want to succeed, you need to put in the hours. Period.
Have you considered that some people might want to work 45 hours a week or more because they might make more money at the end of the month? 45 hours a week is only 9 hours a day for 5 days. Give up an hour of tv every night. Not that demanding!
You know also right that since the businesses in Cayman are, by law, owned by Caymanians, it is Caymanians that decide on the pay and make money off the backs of their fellow country men. Stop blaming expats for everything!!!
Finally, really not sure how Jesus can help us out of this mess.
Jesus cannot help this country. Jesus is the future hope of the greater life up ahead. Life on earth is temporary, eternal life is forever. When the Roman Governor asked Jesus “you say you are a king, where is your kingdom?” Jesus answered, “my Kingdom is not of this world”. Point being Jesus is the ONLY TRUE HOPE, because your life is short and you will die and go either to Heaven if you have chosen Jesus whilst here on earth, or you will go to the burning lake of sulfur eternally, no one has a choice but to die after a short life here on earth. Put your hope in this Government and any Government to come and you will surely have no hope! Corruption and greed rule at the top. The Bible refers to it as “spiritual wickedness in high (authority) places!”
Now what i meant was Jesus can help our peace of mind and for us to have joy in this life no matter the horror and greed and corruption taking place all around us. Jesus is the only True Hope, i bet you my life you will not find hope anywhere else, not in Government, not in money, not in anything else but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior, the Messiah, the Son of God.
I don’t even bother to attend Town Hall meetings when asked for public input, because i’m sick of them never listening to the input, so why waste precious time to go and give it? The middle class is being squashed, so why should the middle class give any input. It would be like a prisoner on death role trying to beg for their life, useless and hopeless.
Problem with people is people just love to chat and chat and chat to try to make it look like they are solving a problem when in fact there is real no attempt at solving the problem. It’s a waste of voice, it goes unheard, what’s the use?
I am saying all this as a non-college grad middle class Caymanian, an average Joe, an average Jane, who is ecstatic and thankful to believe and have the Savior, the Lord Jesus to live life eternal with in Glory! Who does not sell out their soul to the Devil and evil and Mammon!
The Golden rule: do not do onto others what you would not want others to do onto you. The Government and rich investors do not heed the Golden rule.
And as for your talk about working 70 hours a week and it not being any problem to do so, then you are a person who has no family to go home to, or you have no desire to have a normal family home life with your family which is very unhealthy and unbalanced and will end you up with all kinds of stress related illnesses. Scientists have proven that stress kills. So what you are saying is that it is right and good and healthy to be stressed out working 70 hours a week? Really?
I think you need to go to a Psychiatrist or Psychologist and let them answer you on that. You would have to be insane or desperate to work 70 hours a week. Which one are you? The desperate ones have no choice because of their small income. They are not trying to become CEO’s of big companies, they are just trying to support an average middle class life.
There are many of us who just want to live an average life. We don’t care to be rich lords over others and pump up our egos, we just want happy healthy average lives.
Make the minimum wage $10 per hour and Caymanians will be diligent workers in the non-college degree jobs. They need a proper reason to go to work, and that is a realistic amount for this high price cost of living in Cayman for a minimum wage. Anything less is slavery. (Keeping in mind minimum means you continue to raise the person’s salary the longer they stay with you, it doesn’t stay at minimum. Minimum is only for newcomers to the job, then they get salary increases as time goes on. In other words they have hope and incentive to work diligently knowing they will be treated well and given salary increases over time on a fair scale.)
All those Town Hall meetings on minimum wage was fake. It was to make the Government look like they care. All along they knew they would not put into place a realistic, reasonable and proper minimum wage. For all the people that attended those meetings in hopes of seeing a proper minimum wage implemented, they wasted their voice, breath, time and brain space! Those meetings were a false impression to actually make people think the Government really cared. They do not care about the middle class, they are squashing the middle class which is most of the population. Those meetings were mockery!
The last time i checked the Bible relates mockery to Satan, the Devil, Evil.
Mockery is not a Godly attribute.
Bible says, “by their lips they praise me (God) but their hearts are far from me!”
Cayman is self-destructing because of greed, lust for fame and power and ego trips. And all the churches in the island can’t save Cayman.
And sources say Dart’s wife has been overheard by others abroad saying things like “my husband Dart owns the Cayman Islands”, i wonder if all of that is true?
Well he’ll have to own it with the Lodge, maybe he already joined the Lodge?
I wonder if it is Lodge member’s toes that Kernahan stepped on that got him kicked out of the island, he was uncovering corruption in high places in authority at the time?
Thank you Mr. Kernahan for the much needed helicopter that you never got any credit for, it is a blessing and a great help in the fight against crime and drugs and to help rescue people on land and sea. Even if no one else thanks you as you deserve to be thanked, i do thank you Sir. God Bless you always.
An average middle-class non-college-graduate Caymanian.
Even so i have probably wasted my breath and time just writing all this, the good know in their heart the evil that is taking place, the evil want to trample on the good for exposing it. If i have encouraged anyone who likes good and not evil, then it’s worth my time, but i know it won’t change anything to help the average Caymanians because the Government is sold out to the rich, so we the average Caymanians must become poor on a $6 per hour minimum wage.
Choose Jesus for peace in you heart and mind no matter what hardships and persecutions are around us, Jesus is the only one who can give us true peace.
John 14:27
“My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
John 11:25-26
“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”
Romans 6:23
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Social services in this country is a shambles. Social services do not protect the vulnerable including the children of this country. He is the head of social services. That is all I have to say.
Hmm, aren’t a majority of the companies in Cayman owed by Cayman I answered, as per the law. The fact is Cayman I answered treat Caymanians the worst.
I know several Caymanian business owners who refuse to hire Caymanians because of our reputation with sick days, not coming to work, gossiping about each other.
Expand your limited view. That’s the world over.
And by “the world you mean “West Bay”? As some one who has lived and worked all around the world I can tell you that Caymanian workers deserve the reputation they have just as Philipino Workers the world over are considered very hard workers. Ask a Caymanian business owner what he thinks.
You mean people all over the world don’t want to hire Caymanians? Or they only want to hire those who work.
Dear Donkey, most of the largest employers in Cayman are not subject to the Local Companies (Control) Law or, alternatively have obtained an LCCL Licence and therefore do not need 60% Caymanian ownership. That includes all banks and trust companies, fund administrators, insurance companies, law firms, hotels etc.
Good for you Ozzie for standing up with your people..Obviously Alden isn’t going to to anything for us.. Look what he just did to Winston..How embarrassing..
I challenge you Alva and Winston to take a walk across to the other side in January and bring everyone you can with you save for Kurt and Alden and form a new party..
Alden failed us once before and he continues to do so.
Leave Panton his ideology is the same as Aldens, he is saying we need to bring these people here, keep them here because they contribute to government’s revenue. They are giving every work permit no matter how many Caymanians are qualified.
I challenge Immigration heads to look into this too. The seem to be silent on everything these days. Step up guys……..
i would definitely discriminate against someone as ignorant as ozzy…….
I have achieved nothing in three years on the job and now its time again for some populist wiffle in order to secure as many votes as possible come 2017.
the great caymanian conspiracy continues……zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
yawn….this nonsense will only get worse as we move closer to election….zzzz
ozzie should have been sacked a long time ago……
So Oz, why are there no prosecutions? Are our authorities incompetent or corrupt? It must be one or the other given all the laws you have passed to stop this from happening.
ssshhh!…don’t ask awkward questions……
that is such a driftwood thing to say…..
There are no prosecutions because the Caymanians get the measly sums they are entitled to under the Labour Law and then some extra in return for a gag and the threat of blacklisting them from employment generally if they breach it. True story.
Here is an example of why some employers hire expats over Caymanians. If you are forced to work the required hours. If you are forced to do your job and not chat/text with your girlfriends not eat your breakfast lunch and dinner at work and then take your break afterwards. Meet deadlines..don’t go missing throughout the day. Then those employers have aggressive and vicious behavior because they request that you stop this. Yes they might politely say yes sir/madam but then they go about doing it again right away. I have had a young Caymanian ask for a raise who hardly ever works a full week. Here is a hint…if you need more money work more hours. Then I don’t give him a raise right away because I want him to work on his attendance and his attendance gets even worse…huh. Please don’t get me wrong I love this country and its people but to make the country better we need to help the young people learn and understand what it is to be a good corporate citizen. I have worked with some of the brightest and most talented young Caymanians…they have left and gone on to greener pastures. The ones that are less than that are still around and going no where…its not always the employers fault and just because they and their family says they are hard working etc that does not always mean that they are. (because they also may have learnt there habits from their family members)
It Is sad that caymanians build this country but expats believe they must run it . be careful.
I dont see any factories building air conditioners / Generators or cranes that have built this island….soooo who built this island!.
The foundations of the success of these islands was built on the hard labor of Caymanian seamen who braved the seven seas to provide a livelihood for their families. Many of them became chief engineers/master mariners on big ore carriers/oil tankers while still in their twenties or early thirties. Daniel Ludwig, at one time the wealthiest individual in the world, relied heavily on Caymanians to man his large fleet of oil and ore carriers.
It is sad you cannot write English, you should have finished your education properly
It is actually more along the lines of Caymanians sold these islands years ago. Pandering politicians trying to rabble rouse by blaming the people who work for the “owners” does not help. You could declare independence then try to expropriate the businesses back but given that it is a service economy that would be rather difficult.
I think you mean, “It is sad that Caymanians BUILT this country, but expats believe they can run it. Be careful!” Good punctuation, spelling and grammar go a long way to getting those jobs Caymanians want so much.
It’s unfortunate, but true. Sorry, but I have been here fr almost ten years and this rings true time and again. People do not like to hear it but it is the truth. This is how it is every day at my place of employment. I really wish it wasn’t like this but IT IS!!!
A few of us come in and do our jobs. The job description we were hired to do. No more no less. I am very sorry to say but my local counterparts go over and above duty trying to get out of every scrap of work they can. It’s ALWAYS……..wait…ALWAYS!!!about food, now I need a break, that’s not my job, get someone else to do it….etc…etc.
I wish it was not like this. I love living here and actually like my co workers but they are the laziest people I have ever encountered. I know I’ll get ” mashed up” for this but, ….back home if you performed like this at work most people would not last a week. And that’s being conservative…at least with the people I work with. I AM NOT ANTI CAYMANIAN. I just need some individuals who actually care, have at least SOME interest in the job they were hired for, want to actually learn about said job, and care a little bit. Not to much to ask for.
Never gonna happen. My department has done nothing but go down, down, down. Government doesn’t care. I’ve heard them say it time after time…” I don’t care if they know what their doing or not. ” As long as a Caymanian gets the job they don’t care.
Remember that when a family member life depends on it.
Ok, so I’ve already said to much. I love this country, this island, and all the people who reside here. ” can’t we all just get along”. ???? Unfortunately…probably not.
The hastily copied rollover policy that Bermuda has since ditched, is the reason why “those in the more recent wave of expat immigration [are] entirely short-term in their outlook”.
Why shouldn’t the more recent wave of expats make hay while the sun is shining on them and not care about anybody else.
That is the message we send to them when we say “You can’t stay long here!”.
It ought not to be a surprise to anyone that what Ozzie is complaining of has come to pass.
Thinking people know that Cayman needs to return to the days when there was far better collaboration between Caymanians and expats. The best way to telegraph that message would be to discard rollover.
Instead of that, we have to put up with more of the same tub thumping BS that got us here in the first place!
Cayman has too long been following narrow minded, xenophobic, populist, divisive and damaging policies that actively discourage the long term rise in population that is needed if this jurisdiction is to continue on the road to a better and richer place for everyone.
We should be the Singapore of the West, but we have been moving towards Old Kingston.
We need to go back to the old way of welcome and collaborative hard work that served these islands so well in the seventies.
Dear Forelock,
Very well said. Straightforward and to the point, no bashing expats/Caymanians and you offered a solution.
Will you run for Premier please?
Can’t. 36 years in and still a “piece of f^*!ing driftwood” .
Ossie, good for you to speak up at what you’re experiencing and what the general public knows. You are correct in some aspects but there remains the educational gap of some Caymanians and the entitlement mentality of some. If you can step away from Alden enough to continue to address these matters then you may have redeemed yourself. No more “driftwood” talk though. Rise above that mentality!
Socialism and stupidity are to blame for all of the citizens woes.
If Cayman was a Capitalistic society filled with smart people we wouldn’t be having this discussion
Vote grabbing buffoon.
Of course ex pats in business are short term views on employment here. They get kicked off the Island at some stage.
Some people in this country (both locals and expats) are hateful,racist,stuck up and greedy people who only care about money and them selfs!
It’s so good to see that this government’s members have minds of their own. Thank you Progressive’s for actually allowing your members to speak freely.
Thank you Ozzie for your comments. Very timely and not too late, also sooner then later. Now what about you Honorable Members of our Legislative Assembly, God bless
Why is it that people with hate messages always write “God Bless”? Is it so they can exonerate themselves from their decidedly ungodly thoughts?
Oh so why didn’t you voice all this in the past Ozzie? You know you’re on a sinking ship and like rats you want to jump? Well you have been for a good part of 2 years completely useless and we don’t forget! Sad that people were dumb enough to bring you back after your first lousy term.
Is OB suggesting that Caymanians are just so much driftwood???
Mr. Premier
Do you concur? If not perhaps it’s time that you get the PPM CHIEF WHIP under control because he seems to be going rogue again with his usual bovine scatology!
Ha,ha, ha, bovine scatology, I love it. I hope a lot of people reading this give it just a little further thought because of your definition.
This man is clueless and every time he speaks he proves it!
And Ozzie will be a stranger to the LA – again – after the next election.
I didnt hear any solutions being put forward so here are some suggestions for Minister Bodden:
Step 1. remove segregation in schools.
Step 2. invest heavily in adult education and re-training
Step 3. Reduce cost of living
Step 4. institute appropriate social services – independant of political patronage
Step 5. Begin Processing PR applications. While they are not being heard all applicants (even those we don’t want) can stay and many of the ones we do want to keep are leaving as they need to make definite plans for their future.
Step 6. Stop stirring the pot re Driftwood vs Caymanian and do your God damn job which is to create opportunity for the Caymanian people, create the environment for a stable economy and low crime rates. Stop trying to misdirect your own failings in government onto the Expat Boogieman
Agree totally
A very Caymanian false binary. If I can’t get a job I want, I can rob others. Those are no the choices. Go and get a top class education (top degrees are not the same as other degrees from lesser universities) if you want to be in financial services, get proper training in the trades and start up on your own. A Caymanian with a top degree and some experience in a good firm and a decent worth ethic has a bright future and we have seen that. Be entrepreneurs and invent stuff, particularly as the guy who invents a Google or Facebook could do so from the sanctity of the cayman enterprise city! At the other end and massively different, caymanians get in cheap labour for things their own people won’t do. In other countries, people serve in a bar or work in a shop while getting through school and uni but not in cayman.
What an absolute imbecile
Oz
Great job presenting the true feelings of the Progressives. I wonder if Alden considers the views of his cabinet colleague as dangerous rhetoric that is anti-expat and anti-business?
To misquote the movie Apocalypse Now – The BS piles up so fast here you need wings to stay above it!
I wonder if the ppm realise they have been running the country and setting government policies since June 2013 for about 28 months. So they have the majority, power to change things and are responsible if Caymanians are second class citizens under their leadership.
Obviously Ozzie is not part of the solution or understands his role as a Cabinet Minister if he needs to behave like an opposition member campaigning for change.
Important to note: when these wind-bags talk about Caymanians, they are speaking ONLY about the birthright heritage settlement families, and to a time around of the census of 2001, not the “Johnny Come Lately” expat Paper/F$%#ing Driftwood Caymanians, which are automatically assumed to be the dubious recipients of the dreaded Status Grants of 2003. It does not occur to any of these repugnant stubborn bigots that there could be (and should be) a continuous active legitimate settlement process in the Cayman Islands. Nor does it occur to them (yet) that Cayman’s Electorate has expanded from around 13000 in 2005 (which is post 2003 Status Grants) to over 18,271 as at October 2015, an increase of 30% by bona fide, legitimate, and vetted migration. It’s time to put away the hate speeches and embrace the composition of your entire Cayman electorate in 2015, all of whom share a love of Cayman and have legal rights. A Caymanian is a Caymanian is a Caymanian. There are no tiers of citizenship at the ballot box.
http://www.electionsoffice.ky/index.php/search-revised-register-of-electors-68
@2:12 – Hear hear!!! Well said!
Legitimate immigration, yes. The problem is that it seems a large number of cabinet status grants were anything but legitimate.
Yes, yes, we all remember 2003. The point you missed is that the 30% growth in Caymanian voters came after the 2005 election and well after the controversial 2003 Status Grants had been incorporated into the electorate. Get over it and move on. The “Johnny Come Latelies” are now >30% of the electorate. They love Cayman and have demonstrated substantial commitment to the islands. They have a legal voice. Pining for the nostalgic old days of 20 years ago is not a productive effort when we are paying our MLAs to join us in the present day and navigate forward through time and space.
Status grant did not equal automatic entitlement to register to vote. I think you will find that part of the growth was 2003 grantees. whether by Mac or by grant of the Board, who were enabled only after the One Man One Vote Referendum
How many of the “new” Caymanians live in Bodden Town, East End or Northside? Perhaps therein lies the answer to the concentration of anti expat feeing amongst certain MLAs, and why rabble rousing remains a logical campaigning policy.
How many Caymanians you got working at your gas station?
Being a Canadian myself , Mr Bodden has many good points here , many people are just in Cayman for the mighty dollar , and could care less what happens after they leave Cayman and move on to their next country chasing profits .
You’ve obviously been here for about 1 week!
Ive been in cayman for years my friend , not to mention my family are Boddens and live in Bodden Town , and have also wrote books on the history of Cayman , maybe you should read the books instead of staring at the greenback all day , by the way , i dont know ( or care ) where You are from , But look at the whole world complaining about having syrian refugees come into their yard , your all hypocrites .
There is an interesting article “ISIS and the Victim Mentality” in Psychology today. I have sent some quotes from this article to Compass,but they did not publish my comment. I was not making any conclusions, just few quotes from the article. It is about victims mentality and its greatest danger.
-We wonder how it can be that so many seemingly normal people, even ones charged with protecting the public, can be psychopaths. We are also convinced that we, good people that we are, could never engage in such monstrous behavior.
-The tendencies of human beings to see ourselves as good and others as bad, and to blame others for our misery, are well known to psychology.
-But what do we discover when we examine the motives of mass murderers? We discover that they never see themselves as bullies. On the contrary: they insist they are the true victims!
-If you follow the news about ongoing wars, you will notice that each side passionately claims they are the victim and the other is the bully.
-Pay attention to your own behavior. You will notice that in almost every case in which you treated someone badly, it was because you felt victimized by them in some way.
-…….the greatest danger is not the bully mentality, but the victim mentality.
How ISIS recruits?
-…invoking religious guilt among young Muslims that they are not sufficiently pious, then persuading them that the West is waging a war against Islam. The third phase is psychological in which the potential recruit develops a persecution complex because he is a Muslim, withdraws from society, and eventually comes to believe that he is superior to those surrounding him.
“With his spiritual ascension, he starts to see everyone else as nothing but pigs and cows. And that unleashes the psychopath within in order for him to go and slaughter people without any remorse whatsoever’
Sounds familiar?
Looks like Ozzie is starting the campaigning early
“Victim mentality” again from a man who disgraced himself, but appears has no shame.
Alcohol has a way of making you think you got it under control. HA! The great illusion.
Is this the same guy who sat in the IMAC Captive Conference Forum yesterday with all the “driftwood” and visitors that contribute huge amounts to CIG’s budget via license fees and work permits, along with 10 current Cayman scholarships including 2 new ones this year? Biting the hand that feed you is never a good idea.
1:54. If your shoe is sqeezing you foot, what are you going to do about it? Too many locals are without jobs, all because of the number of permits that are handed out to companies. I am not putting down those companies but during the 1970s until recent years Caymanians were the ones employed by those seem companies. Now, all of a sudden Caymanians are sidelined and cannot be employed.
Only one thing missing from your comment when you refer to companies it should read – ‘companies owned and managed by Caymanians.’
Have a walk round, check out a few of the businesses owned by members of the big-name Caymanian families (particularly the ones with connections in the LA) and you won’t find many locals working there.
Then check out some of the larger ex-pat run businesses. You’ll find many of them are carrying Caymanians in what are effectively over-paid sinecures just to make the numbers up, meet their BSP requirements and keep immigration happy.
If Ozzie really thinks there’s a problem here (and I suspect he’s just grand-standing) he needs to look a lot closer to home for the source of it and the solution.
You won’t find Ozzie breathing a word about locally owner and managed businesses. The expats and Dart are the best targets for pandering for votes and if all else fails go after the homosexuals.
Thanks Ozzie for standing up for your people, you will be rewarded at the polls in 2017. Sorry I can’t say the same thing about the premier.
Ozzie your heart is in the right place and your people know that you speak the truth. Thanks for standing up for your people
Election campaign has started early with this crap. He is talking about the poor suffering of senior associate lawyers and oppressed salaried partners? Are those the people coming to see Ossie in social services?
Let the public have some real statistics on this issue instead the same old lip smack.
Sure. Let’s start with details of the names and numbers of Caymanian partners in law firms. Oops!
Having had a look at various firms’ sites, it would appear that the majority of equity partners would appear to be Caymanian. I appreciate that this involves a bit of guess work, but not much.
Except you will have no idea who the equity partners are from the websites.
Nice one Ozzie.. now while you are at it, hopefully someone will stand up in the ‘house’ and talk about all those Caymanian employers that are mistreating employees and not paying pensions and insurance and paying $3./hr to expatriate workers. Yuh want to talk about abuse? Try so live on that … stop by those people living accommodations and see poverty in full bloom. Rest assured, I am a Caymanian and agree with many of the points you are raising, but it is important to speak the truth; there is wholesale discrimination, poverty and ‘holding people back’ regardless of nationality. It’s thousands on both sides of the labor line!. Take de truth and shout it loud!
WOW!
I know someone who was recently given status.The first thing said – now we can get Government scholarships for our children and apply for a British passport. That family does not have and never had any locals in their group of friends unless they were of benefit because they had connections. An isolated incident? Perhaps, but I don’t think so.
Whose fault? The family who is taking advantage of what they can get, or Cayman’s Government who continues to be blind to these things?
BTW – I am a status holder myself, however, having lived in different countries, I truly believe it is crucial to integrate with local society – and by local, I mean those who have ancestors in a Cayman grave yard.
Bleh. You can integrate on behalf of the rest of the status holders if you want, Uncle Tom.