CIG gets failing grade on managing public cash
(CNS): It’s now over two years since the Office of the Auditor General, supported by the Public Accounts Committee, made over thirty recommendations to the Cayman Islands Government on how to improve its budgeting process and management of public spending. But only two recommendations have been implemented. The finance ministry has made little progress and it could be another four years before the public sees a more user-friendly, transparent and outcome-focused budget of the cash government collects from all its residents.
In a new report from her office released Thursday, Auditor General Sue Winspear said she was disappointed with the slow progress the CIG has made in implementing the OAG’s recommendations regarding budgeting, financial management and reporting. The special report, Follow-up on past PAC recommendations 2023, is the latest in a series analyzing government’s progress with implementing recommendations made by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
Looking back at previous reports, Improving Financial Accountability and Transparency: Budgeting and Improving Financial Accountability, published in December 2020, and Transparency: Financial Management and Reporting, published in May 2021, Winspear said that the ministry recently commissioned consultants to move the work forward.
But as a result, the timeline for implementing her recommendations has been pushed back to December 2025, despite the CIG’s long-stated desire to modernise the budget process and demonstrate to the people how the money it spends is working for them. Winspear warned it would be at least another five years before the people would see any noticeable changes for the better.
“This further delay means that we will not see more user-friendly, transparent and outcomes-focused budgets until 2026 and 2027,” Winspear said as she explained why this matters. “The budgeting system is fundamental to driving the efficient and effective use of Cayman’s finite resources and so while these changes may sound a little bureaucratic, they are really important… The Government is not currently reporting some important information needed for proper accountability like the full cost of the liability for post-retirement benefits.”
Winspear stated in her report that this is contributing to the adverse opinion for the Entire Public Sector financial statements and without remedy that position will not improve. The CIG is also still not proactively disclosing information, as required by its own policies, or making annual reports publicly available on websites after they have been tabled in the parliament.
Given the lack of meetings, she urged parliament to update the standing orders to allow reports to be tabled even when members are not meeting. “I continue to be concerned that the lack of regular meetings of the parliament contributes to the late tabling of annual reports, financial statements and government minutes, which hampers the accountability process,” she added.
In this latest report, Winspear details the failings of the finance ministry in rolling out the much-needed improvements. At the end of last month, just two of the 33 recommendations had been implemented. There has been no or limited progress on four, with 25 still in progress or earmarked for some planned action. Another two were rejected by the government.
One of the main recommendations that Winspear has made, which has been accepted as important by both the administrative and successive political arms of government, is the need for the budget to reflect the government’s policy aims and show that the money it has spent is achieving them, measuring the actual outcomes as much as the outputs.
Currently, the budget documents tell the public how many meetings a government entity may have held and how many emails are sent or reports written, but it says nothing about whether or not the goals of those actions were achieved in line with the government’s policies.
Even though the CIG has made a commitment to improving how it reports on public finances, in reality, it is making very slow progress on this fundamental goal. In September last year, the Ministry of Finance signed a contract with EY Cayman Ltd to deliver a business case on creating a budgeting and reporting framework to shift the focus to outcomes that are defined and monitored and to make budget documents more concise, clear and easy to understand.
The cost of the business case was CI$248,800. A draft copy was delivered to the ministry at the end of November, but according to a summary note, that has not been made public because it was only at last week’s Cabinet meeting that the document was reviewed by ministers, who appear to have approved the consultants ‘Option 3’, though no details of what that is have been revealed.
The next step, according to the government’s management response in the OAG’s report, is the
procurement of more consultancy services to help with the implementation of the new framework. Officials said this will begin next month and continue until the end of 2025. But Winspear expressed her concerns about that timeline and the delays, pointing out that the implementation will now be three years later than originally planned.
The timeline for many of the other recommendations made by Winspear and the PAC, all of which are designed to make the management of taxpayers’ cash more transparent and the CIG more accountable, has also been delayed. Very few important changes are likely to have been properly implemented before the next election, ensuring that yet another administration will evade proper scrutiny by the electorate on how it is using the more than CI$1 billion it collects.
Winspear also confirmed that the government continues to be late with the formal response, required by law, to PAC reports. One of those outstanding minutes relates to a report tabled in parliament looking at the myriad problems surrounding OfReg, which was tabled in parliament more than four years ago.
See the latest report from the OAG in the CNS Library.
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Category: Government Finance, Government oversight, Politics
Government and Cayman are now unfortunately reaping the predicable demise of the civil service and it’s gentrification by the Brits and Jams.
This predictable inevitable devolution stems from the failed Goff/McCarthy efforts which saw all the food centralized services split up into each and every Ministries, department and office. Ie HR, finance, training, communications and oversight.
This confusion and intentional reduction of attrition and promotions now have the civil service as a skeleton of what it once was.
Tragik
When you consider that the CIG are fiduciaries of the peoples money, it’s absolutely incredible how disdainful and dismissive they are of their auditors. If this scenario – years of ignoring auditors/inspectors findings – were to happen in a traditional financial institution, the FI would be fined (by the regulator) and quite possibly lose its license.
If anyone expected Chris “yardie” Saunders to do anything but secure his pay raise I have some swamp land you might be interested in
I wish I could get a pay raise being the captain of two ships that sunk
No sure why we elect people incapable of managing their own pittance, but then expect them to manage the country’s finances.
No wonder we can’t find any money for a glass crusher🤪 nothing but a bunch of 🤡🤡🤡
I’ve adduced four concrete examples of failure, and you’ve responded with emotional invective noticeably lacking any substantive engagement or rebuttal.
Please explain to me and other CNS readers how you’re addressing points 1-4 above?
We will inevitably draw adverse inferences from your inability to do so.
Expats built Cayman. The truth may hurt, but it’s still the truth. See Freyer, Tony, and Andrew P. Morriss. “Creating Cayman as an offshore financial center: structure & strategy since 1960.” Ariz. St. LJ 45 (2013): 1297. https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/23.
It may feel cathartic to contrive conspiracy theories, but it’s both nonesensical and counterproductive. See these two blog posts from 2005, almost two decades ago. Plus ça change….
https://h2g2.com/entry/A4503665
https://h2g2.com/entry/A4503683
Some quotes:
[Expats] come, earn a bit of cash…shake our heads at the ludicrous way the place is run (but are quite unable to change anything because no Caymanian likes to have a foreigner tell them what to do) and cheerfully bugger off home at the end of our stay. Equally, as all the Caymanians are busy sitting in offices, being important and making up jobs for each other and all the ex-pats are well trained professionals (or they wouldn’t have been allowed here in the first place) who’s going to mop the floors, cart trolleys and generally to all the donkey work? Happily, there’s a multitude of Jamaicans and Hondurans desperately keen to earn Caymanian wages (even donkeywork on Cayman pays enough to support a family back home) and happy to do all the work that Caymanians won’t do for the simple reason that they don’t have to and that the white ex-pats are overqualified for. That’s how the society functions here; class delineation corresponds almost perfectly to nationality. It’s a situation that affords the Caymanian people a standard of living comparable to any of the world wealthiest countries whilst having very little part in maintaining said standard of living and so being totally dependent on foreign nationals to fill in the gaps left by an entire society cramming itself into the upper-middle class. OK, not all Caymanians fit into this picture of things. Some do other things; learn professions and so on. There are always the stupid and the lazy (lazier, I mean), the increasing crack-smoking faux gangsta section of the youth of the country, who won’t get jobs – aberrant factions of society, who don’t fit the pattern (one of my patients described himself as being from ‘the ghetto’ the other day – he meant a square kilometre up the road where the houses need a lick of paint and most families don’t run a second car). Generally speaking, though, society functions as I describe above and very nice it is too for most of us – particularly the natives. What I can’t get my head round, then, is the total lack of insight into the way things work and the constant underlying resentment of foreigners from the population as a whole.
Expats, it is muttered (and written in very concerned and usually badly spelled letters to the newspapers), come over to the island, take jobs away from honest hard-working Caymanians (I’m told there is such a thing…) and end up taking Caymanian dollars off the island – weakening the economy. Weakening the economy? We are the economy. Where the bloody hell do they think all their money comes from anyway? Fish? Aside from which if there was a Caymanian capable of doing my job, there’s not a chance in hell I’d be here.”
It all came about through politrix and the immigration laws back in 2006. Then the division set in, compounded by politicians on every side spouting expat vitriol at district meetings. Fortunately some of us take people as WE find them, regardless of nationality, but sadly we’re now a minority.
Realist — Your views are interesting and, at the same time, somewhat insulting. There are very capable Caymaians who are capable, determined and motivated.
It might be best to not insult Caymanians too much, as you have done, because a lot of things will be done differently real soon.
The Cayman Islands does require foreign workers, who are talented and hard workers, that play a significant role in our economy.
The problem with the system right now is that too much corruption, greed and complacency is rampant, and this is going to stop very soon.
Caymanians welcome the good people from other countries that are positive to our society, but we are in need of such contributions less and less as time goes on.
When the Cayman Islands were growing through modernization growing pains, things were different and help was needed far more, but we are understanding how things work as well as who is beneficial and who is not.
Keep degrading Caymanians and let’s see how far that gets you. People are getting ready to make big moves that will ensure that things don’t stay the way that they are currently.
Enjoy it while it lasts, because nothing lasts forever. If you knew what I know, you might not be so disparaging with your remarks about Caymanians.
>”There are very capable Caymaians who are capable, determined and motivated.”
Agreed. They are not however represented among your politicians, hence points 1-4, above.
I don’t mean to be rude, merely provocative. I am certainly not (intentionally) tarring everyone with the same brush, but I am asserting that the root cause of your problems is the shallow pool of both voters and candidates.
The Foreign Select Committee made compelling points which would assist in rectifying the challenges, hence citing the report.
>”People are getting ready to make big moves that will ensure that things don’t stay the way that they are currently. Enjoy it while it lasts, because nothing lasts forever. If you knew what I know, you might not be so disparaging with your remarks about Caymanians.”
How exciting! “If we knew what you knew…”. Oh no! Do tell! Is there is a secret master plan, cunningly developed by people in CIG who are as cunning as a fox who’s just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University?
If you feel the need to make threats, just make them openly: what exactly are you proposing? Or are you just mouthing-off for catharsis?
Rather than making threats though, how about articulating coherent alternative solutions? I’ve listed four issues above which, in my submission indicate that Cayman is incapable of self government. Granted, I have stated the case at its highest, but no one has attempted to substantively address my points. Perhaps there is a reason for that, as unpalatable as it may be to you.
Obviously, every expat in Cayman is well aware that the country could take a Bermuda-esque protectionist turn, and commit economic suicide. For example, any attempt to remove Privy Counsel oversight, or – hilarious a suggestion, as this may sound – declare independence, would result in an exodus of investment.
Bermuda’s missteps are years in the past, even if the economic carnage continues, but Hong Kong has more recently experienced capital and talent flight to the benefit of Singapore. Beijing however, could afford to take the hit economically. Do you think that Cayman could?
It would certainly create absolute chaos. Ironically, of course, protectionist efforts would almost exclusively benefit the expats they were designed to attack: (1) funds would divest from Cayman, creating work for financial services expats who would move with them; (2) Cayman would be left with the dregs.
Incidentally, I suspect that my reply above may have been decoupled from my original comment. Outwith that context, it certainly could appear to be rude. Apologies if so!
Also, the blog I quoted was written by someone else: not my words, I’m merely noting that there are persistent issues going back two decades at least.
Not to worry. It’s hard to insult Donkeys. And those that elect Donkeys.
Agreed, big changes are coming but maybe not in the way you predict. Just have a look at the ESO 2021 report about how many banks and trusts moved off island compared to the previous year. In the short term the cash will keep rolling in but long term best be prepared to deal with an inevitable economic slowdown. The CIG might even have to rationalise then and introduce competency / value for money as a measure of success.
‘The problem with the system right now is that too much corruption, greed and complacency is rampant, and this is going to stop very soon.’
You mean the system designed and run by Caymanians?
Insight like a bag of rocks.
realist, really? I would say far from it. if you are so unhappy and seems to have something jammed up the behind, you would want to use and focus that energy on something successful and positive, use your words to help the people really in need. not everyone here is all bad foreigner or non-foreigner. it is really sad innocent have to suffer for the guilty and that you find everywhere.
Furthermore, use your time on this earth and try to spread positivity. You seem to have a lot to say, and you should make it count talk to people that will help you get your point across, but don’t bash people of the country that yet you reside in and have to deal with daily.
You came here for a reason and whatever that reason may be you are here, so show some respect for the country and heritage we have of being kind, I was raised right with a loving family. I wish you can maybe add assistance in making the community better and will look forward to you taking a stand and doing something right instead of coming online and complaining. Have a great day.
-Caymanian
TRUTH!!!!!
Politicians -Happy
Civil service leadership -Happy
Crown -Very Happy
Errryting Kriss please don’t start nuttin!
No surprises here! The only surprise is how the DG and many CO’s still can keep their jobs!! Franz Manderson is walking incompetence and he fosters it at each level below him!!
World-class Disgusting!!
On the job training
Status quo, despite prison being a possible outcome. Classic Cayman.
First four words of the headline were all that were needed.
Those same 4 words would actually be funny, if they weren’t so serious.
It has got to the point now where one can’t read a media news daily , without a story on the latest government administration fail.
When you read the Premier openly admitting to it , that might be a flag. What should also be a flag for the citizenry and residents in Cayman, is the deafening silence from the very same government ministers and those in charge of the respective portfolios and departments , to do anything about the well illustrated and documented issue’s at-large. It’s been going on this way for decades.
And you wonder why we are on the gray list!! Corruption rampant!!!
“grey list”
Gray and grey are both common spellings of the color between black and white. Gray is more frequent in American English, whereas grey is more common in British English. The varying usage of both grey and gray extends to specialized terms such as animal species (gray/grey whale) and scientific terms (gray/grey matter). Greyhound is an exception, which has a different derivation than the color.
We have a Commission for Standards in Public Life: Sonia Bush, Keith Blake and Rosealie Twohey. They are in charge of reading the Auditor General’s Reports and hitting the buzzer on the Nolan Principles. Are they still on COVID leave?
Recycled waste of space Wha Dey going to do ??? Clog up civil service toilet !
……And yet, they are very quick and easy to let loose the dogs of regulatory oversight on the International Financial Services Industry…and woe betide any service provider who does not meet the minute rigours of “corporate governance” and any number of internal controls, SOGs, Policies & Procedures to include proper accounting and financial management – there is a “fine and penalty” awaiting the assignment of a (failed “in the real world”) civil/public servant.
…..Do as we say, not as we do….
Can we get CIMA to regulate CIG?
.zzzzzzz…politicians dont want transparency! what? ya mad! lol
time for class action lawsuit against the incompetence of the civil service and cig.
…this is not the USA……
Correct. Cayman law uses “representative action”.
it is past time for a class action lawsuit for incompetence, however I don’t think you can sue them because of Sovereign immunity.
Maladministration is a crime, and should be prosecuted whenever it occurs.
We don’t do class action suits in the Cayman Islands.
Too bad really.
direct rule for 2 years while a new raft of political candidates are selected/vetted based on qualifications, experience and integrity. then we have new elections.
hahah…it’s like a bad joke…but cig and civil service cannot go 5 mins without making idiots out of themselves!
no such thing as accountability in cig and the civil service
the cycle of failure and incompetence is never ending
Exactly
why is anyone surprised at the shocking level of incompetence of the civil service???
excuse the political incorrectness…but civil service is a social welfare work placement programme for poorly educated locals who are unable to get real jobs in the private sector…
if we can’t face facts we will never find the solution.
This is the best explanation I have read here in all these comments
World Class…
CIG public finance administration has been in decline ever since the PFML was enacted. Funny that.
Note to young people. Become accountants/consultants.
Since long long before that 12:49. Don’t you remember when bills went unpaid and people were threatening not to provide necessary services and supplies to government? When the money ran out at the end of the year? When budgets had an amount for half an ambulance or one and a half dump trucks put in them to keep the budget “balanced”? When government department heads were told to put in completely false and inflated sums of money as supposed revenue in their budget submissions, again so that the budget would look like it was “balanced”? The supposedly good old days were often not as good as people think they were. It’s called nostalgia.
Was that when McKeeva tripled work permit and CIMA fees? Through all the later ‘surpluses’ they never went down again, and CIG continues to feed at this trough.
Maybe they are expecting us to count the traffic cones that are surrounding the road works.
The government is taking in more money than ever before and celebrating a surplus while borrowing money. This foolishness needs to stop. We are all being told to live within our means and make sacrifices so the government needs to start to do the same. Also, this government made new long term commitments that had resulted in the government taking on new and ongoing expenditures. There is no way that this government should be borrowing money. We are heading for disaster if we continue with the foolishness.
Franzie time!
The highlight of his career as dg of the cs is his dg5k that is all about the glorification of his ego surrounded by hand picked favorites who’d be fired without his protection many times over
CIG jobs = welfare system.
Two words: “Turtle Centre”
Governor and Deputy Governor are letting down the country and the AG reports have a recurring theme that must not be ignored any longer. The excuses must stop
We really need direct rule.
This is a ridiculous way to handle the public’s finances.
So Third World.
The UK is a shithole and cannot fix itself so piss off back across the pond if you want to be in a bigger mess of a country.
Why you think they are desperate to come over her and never want to leave?
So Caymanian royalty what is your suggestion?
Bet you are one of those feeding at the public trough.
Direct rule from Britain? Have you seen the hash they’re making of their own finances, bobo?
4:04, The current economic problems in the UK, largely brought on by BREXIT, are minor compared to our problems in the Cayman Islands.
Here, financial transparency and financial accountability in the CIG has become non existent the past few years while in the UK, one can still clearly see what is being spent and where. While one may disagree with the Sunak budget and the previous budgets they are transparent.
Nobody questions here why when the CIG says we have large budgetary surpluses, we are borrowing money from banks when interest rates are so high. On top of that, it is clear that there is a lot of financial waste but the public is kept in the dark from exactly seeing where it is located.
Financial accountability has gone the way of the dodo bird here.
Direct rule for 3 years would help to clean up the mess here and put us back on the right financial track.
If we continue on the current track we are headed the way of Jamaica.
They can’t rule themselves….Are you paying attention what is happening in the UK? Two fresh carrots and one tomato in one hands…forget about chicken and eggs.
Turnips! 😬
How the hell can you be saying you have big surpluses and then go out and borrow money at a time when interest rates are so high?
Can somebody explain this to me as it goes against everything I learned about economics in university?
Nothing will change.
Civil servants are not accountable to anyone.
Time is not of any significance.
Money is not an issue.
Their income is guaranteed irrespective of performance.
Days are spent in meetings followed by circulation of minutes.
Job done.
The civil service here is third world at least with incompetence and lazy people warming chairs at all levels. It’s embarrassing for a modern country like the Caymans.
The where now? Get back to Wisconsins
Manderson needs to retire or get fired now. The buck stops with his ineffective leadership
When the Auditor General has to continually ask “where is the money going” every year, it’s clear that the DG is not only putting up resistance, but likely also in on whatever schemes have been institutionalized. This should escalated to an ACC/FCU file.
SMH this shouldn’t be so hard. If you’re spending the money now (which God knows they are) and you’re tracking it with any reasonable book keeping and accounting then you have a benchmark by which to set a budget. Start small at the front lines and work your way back up to the top and see what that looks like as a benchmark.
Then report it.
Then work to optimize it and do better each year. It’s not rocket science.
The big problem is that the government is drowning in cash right now due to these crazy high costs of imports and record work permit fees. So, they look at is as “we have a surplus and therefor must be doing such a good job”. But all that revenue has absolutely nothing to do with any of their policies and they are still spending very wastefully.
If anything, they should be reducing the import duties and therefor the surplus so that the cost of living isn’t so unbearable to all the people of this country. They’re filling the government coffers with a tax on the inflated goods we’re all struggling to pay for.
Why wait to 2025…that’s embarrassing
Politely disagree on starting at the front line and working up. If you are going to have ‘outcome accounting’ instead of ‘action accounting’ then you need to start from the top. Otherwise if you are in charge of, for example, finding a new form of Govt accounting system by say the end of January 2023, and you deliver your report at say the end of November 2022 then you still failed to achieve your outcome because the top-level decision-makers didn’t look at it until after the end of February.
There is a reason the Civil Service can’t work by outcomes instead of outputs. And it doesn’t start at the front lines.
Brer Anancy at his very best!
And this is a surprise to anyone ? The level of wastage, inept management and potential corruption in relation to how public funds are used/misappropriated by CIG at the most senior levels is staggering and quite frankly outrageous. No wonder they don’t want the public to know. God only only knows what an independent review of cig finances carried out by the uk government would reveal. Only have to look at BVI to get a general idea of what could be going on here.
Is it any wonder CIG is in this position? Govt is in charge of a billion dollar budget but acts as if they are a church sub-committee, discussing how $25 should be spent, and not caring if no decision is taken. Small minds and poor abilities. If they are so keen on hiring consultants, maybe they should outsource their own roles to people who can do better.
this was the comment I wished to make as well!
10:43 KABOOM!
Kaboom is what Tomlinson was trying to prevent, and it cost him his job…
Cayman is presently incapable of self-government. Four examples of incompetence/corruption demonstrating this fact:
1. Squandering public funds, claiming that there is a budgetary surplus, while borrowing money and allowing food import costs to skyrocket.
2. Unlawful delays processing permanent residence applications, and lying about it. CIG make the rules, people obey them, CIG acts dishonestly, then lies about it. This is both irrational and a breach of legitimate expectations. It doesn’t broadcast “Rule of Law” and “Stable investment location”, it proclaims “We’re going the same way as South Africa and the ANC”.
3. Mount Trashmore. This should be the emblem of the Cayman Islands’ future: a lobotomised bunch of knuckle-dragging tribal parish-council-with-delusions-of-adequacy muppets doing nothing as a stinking biohazard pollutes the air next to their capital city.
4. Cars, congestion and the need for a mass transit system. The aforementioned half-wit ‘parish councillors’ are determined to make money by building roads to allow them to develop and sell land they own. Call it what it is: corruption. Quite aside from the transparent dishonesty, it’s nonsensical: more roads won’t reduce traffic. Nor will buses: they use roads, too… Look at Hong Kong, Singapore or Dubai: what’s required is a light rail system (e.g. DLR), tram system or monorail. Yes, it will be expensive. No, there’s no alternative unless you want a permanently-jammed hellscape for everyone living east of Hurley’s (What’s that, MPs? You don’t care: you just want $$$$. Of course.)
So what? The Caymanian half-wits in charge are running the island into the ground. A period of direct rule from Westminster is required, and a complete overhaul of the political system here. As the 2019 Parliamentary report* re. Caymanian status / ‘belongership’ warned, expats should have the right to both vote and stand for election. Expats *are* the economy – the Caymanians have only been ruining their own island. Let’s try 20 years of expat rule, and see if we can’t do a better job (Hint: we can. Anyone with half a brain could do so).
* See: “Global Britain and the British Overseas Territories: Resetting the relationship”, The Foreign Affairs Committee, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmfaff/1464/146408.htm#_idTextAnchor037
“…those who do not have [Caymanian status], or the equivalent, cannot vote or hold elected office, even if they are permanently resident British Overseas Territories or UK citizens. …Cayman did not respond. In its written submission, the FCO points to its 2012 OTs White Paper, which expressed the hope that the OTs would extend the franchise to [non-Caymanian status holders] …the size of the electorate is small compared with the overall population, with ‘[Caymanian status]’ a constitutional prerequisite to qualify as an elector and to stand for election. The 2012 White Paper stated the UK Government’s belief that people who have made their permanent home in the OTs should be able to vote…
[The Caymanian status requirement is] wrong. While we recognise that the OTs are small communities with unique cultural identities, we do not accept that there is any justification to deny legally-resident British Overseas Territory and UK citizens the right to vote and to hold elected office. This elevates one group of British people over another and risks undermining the ties that bind the UK and the OTs together in one global British family. The UK Government should initiate a consultation with the elected governments of the OTs and work with them to agree a plan to ensure that there is a pathway for all resident UK and British Overseas Territory citizens to be able to vote and hold elected office in territory. In its response to this report the FCO should lay out a timetable for this consultation process and set a deadline for phasing out discriminatory elements of [Caymanian status].”
The paragraph formatting in my comment appears to have been sabotaged. This may just be an artefact of the site’s preview facility, but if not I’d greatly appreciate if CNS would insert line feeds where appropriate. Many thanks.
CNS: It looks OK to me. I’m guessing it was the preview function.
Thanks, yes – that must be the case.
Realist — You clearly are not grounded in reality. Keep dreaming and stay in the clouds.
Oh, I agree, of course. It will never happen. I just want to be able to look back in 10-15 years’ time, and loudly say “I TOLD YOU SO!”.
I have archived a copy of this page here, with my warning above, here: https://archive.is/2023.03.11-175033/https://caymannewsservice.com/2023/03/cig-gets-failing-grade-on-managing-public-cash, just in case URLs change in the future, and I can’t find the main address.
To be clear: I am specifically pinning the blame on Cayman’s continuing failure to address points 1-4 above on the fact that both the electorate and all political candidates are drawn from an extraordinarily shallow gene pool. This has created – and will continue to maintain – a worsening cycle of failure and corruption. The closest comparison to Cayman now is South Africa towards the end of the Mandela years. The initial optimism has worn off, and xenophobia, jingoism and corruption are beginning to corrode the foundations of the state: https://www.afr.com/world/africa/eskom-boss-told-police-he-survived-murder-attempt-20230108-p5cb4r.
The equivalent of the obsessive navel-having about Caymanian affirmative action is the Black Economic Empowerment legislation in South Africa. As with all attempts to impose racial preferences, it has been a failure: https://theconversation.com/only-south-africas-elite-benefits-from-black-economic-empowerment-and-covid-19-proved-it-189596.
The only people who really suffer in the end are Caymanians. In 10-15 years, once the wheels finally fall off, the expats can simply go home, or move to another country with better governance (ie most places). By definition, those who secured work permits and status here have valuable skills and can therefore escape. Caymanians have nowhere to go. Caymanian politicians, CIG, the Civil-Service-welfare-scheme-for-the-unemployable, et al are destroying their own people’s future.
Presently, the areas where Cayman is successful is *because* of expats, and *despite* Caymanians. The truth hurts, but tough love means warning Cayman now so that (1) they have the opportunity to change course; and (2) as you [likely correctly] suggest, if they *don’t* change course, we can say “I TOLD YOU SO” – as we pack up our bags and disappear in a decade or so. There is however another path.
Pure bollocks you should go back to wherever you come from and fix all the issues there. You are the classic definition of the entitled expat that this country can do without. You and all like you should sling your hook back to the UK and reminisce about about the good life you had in Cayman whilst you were a closet bigot that hid behind anonymity.
Caymanians working with you must need therapy if this is how you view Caymanians and this country that you are desperate to become a citizen of we do not need your kind or your money so you can piss off.
ha. give yourself a franzie and go sit in your echo chamber as the islands slowly, sorry v quickly, get reclaimed by the ocean.
We don’t do class action suits in the Cayman Islands.
Too bad really.
The truth hurts doesn’t it Muppet Hunter?
Slaying the messenger is not the answer.