Critical cruise info still missing 26 days from vote
(CNS): Less than four weeks before Cayman voters will be asked to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the construction of cruise berthing facilities somewhere in Grand Cayman, campaigners advocating for a ‘no’ vote in the referendum say the people still don’t have access to important information. With no specific plan on the table, voters are being asked to give the next government a blank cheque without any idea of the budget, scale or even location of the potential facility.
“Before we vote, we deserve real answers,” a spokesperson for the Vote No Cayman campaign said this week, as the clock ticks down to the national ballot.
Representatives from CPR Cayman, Sustainable Cayman and other local environmental groups have stepped up their campaign and are encouraging voters to think about and challenge the messages being pushed by the former government that the cruise sector cannot survive unless the country provides the cruise lines with costly and damaging berthing facilities.
The CPR activists said in a release Thursday that the current government, which had “brought this unnecessary referendum”, had not “provided any pertinent data or verifiable information to support this attempt to move forward on a cruise berthing facility, which would saddle the country with more significant long term debt for a project that is not a stated top 10 national priority”.
Various candidates and parties campaigning in this election have privately conducted political polls, and several have revealed that a cruise dock does not feature in the top ten concerns of the majority of voters polled.
The ‘no’ campaigners have deep concerns about the lack of information about any potential project if the ‘yes’ vote prevails. They also say there is a significant amount of misinformation being peddled to voters on the election campaign trail and by ACT, the leading ‘yes’ vote campaign.
Of particular concern is the misinformation about the environmental impact of the development of a dock in the George Town Harbour, if that is where the next administration chooses to build a cruise port. Some have claimed that it would not cause any environmental damage, which is completely untrue.
Without a specific plan, the extent of the damage caused is difficult to calculate, but it is indisputable that any kind of dredging and construction in such a sensitive marine environment would damage the coral reefs and other marine life and would threaten the wrecks that are an important part of Cayman’s marine heritage.
There would be direct and immediate damage during construction and ongoing damage from operations during the lifetime of the facility. The only question is the extent of the damage.
The last PPM administration was seeking to construct a large-scale project that would have seen some 20 acres of seabed damaged during dredging and at least 15 acres of coral reef directly destroyed by that dredging. That project was estimated to cost as much as $400 million.
Regional economist Marla Dukharan has disputed the estimates that the UPM released about the economic benefits of building a cruise port. Her report, Beyond The Debate and Into The Data: Cruise Tourism in Cayman, which she compiled using data from the cruise sector, international open sources and the Cayman Islands Government, paints a very different picture.
However, her compelling findings have been dismissed by those in favour of the project.
CPR has said that Dukharan’s report provided an unbiased economic analysis of the publicly available data and provides very valuable insights.
“Post-pandemic, cruise arrivals to Cayman have been declining, but a similar trend is observed in 83% of jurisdictions in the BREA 2024 study, including those with cruise berthing infrastructure, demonstrating that declining cruise arrivals is not at all unique to Cayman, and that cruise berthing infrastructure and the capacity to accommodate mega ships will not necessarily reverse these declines,” CPR said.
Over the last week or so, ACT has hosted a number of presentations by former cruise industry executives and by Allen Chastanet, the former prime minister of Saint Lucia. The arguments put forward in favour of a cruise port during these presentations were based on distorted perspectives and an absence of accurate local data.
One of the main issues that the CIG has not addressed is that there is no data on the actual number of Caymanians who depend on cruise tourism, either because they own a business or are employed in a business that caters solely to cruise passengers.
The figures that have been released cover businesses and jobs that cater to tourism as a whole and do not show what would happen to those businesses and jobs if the cruise sector declined significantly here.
The activists say that such figures are critically important to understanding the benefit versus harm of a cruise dock facility. If the CIG does not know how many people it is trying to help and what is causing the problem, spending millions of dollars, damaging the environment and stressing the country’s already inadequate infrastructure and attractions is a massive risk.
The decline in cruise numbers here is not unique and is not exclusively about Cayman’s lack of berthing facilities but relates to the industry’s constantly evolving and changing model, as outlined by Dukharan in her recent report.
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Hot off the press!!!
“We supported the current Government’s proposed referendum on new cruise infrastructure for Cayman so that the country can have its democratic say on the future path for the industry.
We will be guided by the result of the referendum as we develop our re-imagined vision for the tourism sector.”
Zero commitment to the result of the referendum, as per the newly released PPM Manifesto.
PPM are pirates dart’s proxy Joey will do what he is told to do especially if there are contracts for services his interests can provide!
Of course there’s no commitment..Mac and Kenneth have to wait and see what’s in it for them, as they negotiate with the Chinese.
It’s a simple yes or no question asking should cayman islands develop cruise piers , just as the other two questions on the referendum are simple yes or no questions, the objective is to find out how popular or unpopular these issues are, then after you have the votes if they are favorable the government can proceed with the next stage, it’s useless getting to far ahead and not even knowing how all the country voters feel .
Agreed , but the fear is that if you do vote yes, Mac and Kenneth will take that as a blank check to proceed .
How they will proceed is not known, other than it will definitely be to their personal advantage, and WE will be paying for it.
Vote NO.
Exactly!
Give them a finger and they’ll take your whole arm. Vote NO!
Vote No!We may need a new cargo terminal but not a cruise terminal.
Fix the dump issue first and show us you’re capable of handling a berthing facility, otherwise we all smell garbage when politicians open their mouths about anything else.
Thanks CPR for coming forward as a group again and stating a clear position based on the need for information in order to help voters make an informed decision.
The bombastic utterances and lack of a clear plan other than to pummel all individuals that are asking valid questions is shocking and makes it very easy to vote no because the public are not in a position support the project due to a lack of information in order make an informed decision.
Until the government and pro port ACT lobby start dealing with information instead of threats I will vote NO because the project does not make sense when you read the Duhkarran report and search for facts.
yes! I agree. they only like comments and questions that suit their agenda!
Time to Vote No to Kenny Bryant and PPM!
UPM/PPM will bankrupt these islands please do not elect such reckless candidates including the PPM group
Kenneth Bryan the GQ Liberator is pushing for these piers for what reasons? Everything he touched was a failure. The Barbados/CAL deal, the transport system, the immigration reform, land purchase near Lobster Pot that has been fenced off since purchase and of course the the Scranton Park.we dont need parks, affordable homes would have been a better option for the homeless that are put up in hotels or even a parking lot for George Town as part of the revitalization.
This is an absolute no-brainer: Whether there are any details or not, VOTE NO !
Yup, it really should be a no brainer, but then again Kenny was elected twice so…WTF knows…
VOTE NO!
I wonder if the pro pier screamers are in any way concerned following the latest revelations of Cayman’s financial black hole.
I wonder if they even care , believing that Kenneth and Mac will magic up $450Million
that won’t cost us anything.
None of pro cruise people in any presentation ever mention cost, or the burden of repaying the loan.
They don’t care, they just want Kenny to get them piers.
Kenny don’t care either, he just wants their votes then it’s back to sliming his way to becoming Premier.
They’re telling us don’t worry, the cruse lines will pay for the piers.
What they forget is that the loan will have to be repaid, and government will have to replace the income it was receiving with another income source.
That other source is US through increases in all fees and duties.
Just vote NO. If there’s no information on what will happen if the majority is Yes, then the only sensible vote is NO until we get all the details on what/where/cost.
Would we need a pier if we stop cruise ships & move the Caymanian workers into new jobs? The 400 or so directly impacted?
The current dock would then be large enough for our growing imports/cargo.
I do not support piers in GT Harbour. Out by the Turtle Centre, maybe. The water out there is deep, so the damage might be less. Of course, I am no expert. Having said that, if the majority says no to piers, we need to brainstorm for a plan B that generates income for the Caymanians who work in all areas of tourism. They have mortgages and children who want to go to university too…
The government should know exactly how many people are in the watersports/ tourism business. During COVID each tourism business and Caymanian employees were all offered stipend. Add them up, the real numbers are there.
Until there is a responsible government, with corresponding plans for the port project plus details about the formation of a credible independent gaming and lotto commission, a local cannabis production framework…these could be a very long wait. It’s easy to vote no.
Cayman’s Civil Service can’t even generate auditable accounts at the moment, which is illegal.
The port is a non-starter because of the way Min Bryan and ACT have conducted their campaign based on lies and zero facts just bullying and insults
Government DO know how many Caymanians are dependent on the Cruise business….at least 50 alone work on the tender boats…who will KEEP their jobs if no piers.
The pro pier screamers just find it more dramatic to say thousands will starve .
This will drag on for years.
Everyone , and they’re all “captains” and Marine Engineers, will want to have their way, Politicians will line up their favorite contractors, cost estimates will be prepared and ridiculed and the Chinese will offer their Design/Build/Finance/screwyou solution to the great benefit of their bought MPs.
Do we need to ask conflicted serial liars for their latest lie? Bankrupting the Cayman Islands and destroying the marine habitat only plays to one particular vulture.
I’m Not worried about bankruptcy…the 4% who think they will benefit from piers, will look after the 96% who will have to pay for it….riiight..?
We have access to the Baird PFS which reliably cautions readers with all they need to learn: it’s a resoundingly bad idea. It would require extensive dredging and maintenance into soft cavernous limestone which will turn our enviably crystal clear waters, productive with life and reliant-industries, into green soup, extending north along seven mile beach, south to the drop off, and miles out to sea. Why is there anyone searching for more reasons beyond that? That’s plenty enough to vote NEVER, and with some conviction.
They have no intention of providing details or even outlining potential proposals because the entire point of holding
this vote now is to avoid having to defend specifics. That is not a bug – it is a feature and its the primary benefit the pro-port crowd have going this time around. In 2019 the PPM was unable to escape the ugly reality of the plan they proposed, the years of Contruction, the environmental destruction, the decades long arrangement to pay for it all.
They have realised in the years since 2019 that offering specifics to the public in a vote will doom their efforts, which is why they backed the vote now, they want a vote on nothing to ideally give them carte blanche to then push another horrendous deal this time saying ‘we already had a vote, we can do a few public meetings and proceed’.
I also have a sneaking suspicion if the vote is a narrow majority one way or the other it will basically be dismissed in the future whenever a project is proposed – pro-berthing groups and businesses will say ‘yes there was a vote years ago, that was then and that was not on THIS proposal’
Groups like ACT want the vote to be held with no details because they do not want to defend or have to justify the reality of their desires. They want a massive multi-hundred-million-dollar public expense to line the pockets of a few duty-free merchants and to clog the streets of Cayman with as many tourists as they can because it is the only way their business model remains feasible. Instead of adapting to the market that exists or reconfiguring their businesses to serve locals as our population increases, they want the government to step in and prop up their business models at any cost and with no concern for any other factors.
Well presented 12.57..
Many of the waterfront merchants don’t mention they are partnered with overseas people who have similar shops in other cruise destinations.
The money goes off island same as it does for the foreign workers they employ.
See through their narrative and the true facts are very different.
“One of the main issues that the CIG has not addressed is that there is no data on the actual number of Caymanians who depend on cruise tourism, either because they own a business or are employed in a business that caters solely to cruise passengers.”
100% this point. Where is Kenny with his numbers showing the impact on Caymanians. They don’t have any because they don’t support their narrative. Fear over Facts.
Caymanians in the cruise business are outnumbered by Jamaicans brought in by their business owning countrymen .
45% are Caymanian, at best.