Sol owners want $500k donation spent on security
(CNS): The Simpson Group, the owners of Sol, one of the two suppliers of fuel to the Cayman Islands, has pledged to make a donation of US$1 million to the R3 Cayman Foundation, created by Ken Dart, and is asking that half the money is spent on national security projects. Sol MD David Simpson said security was important to everyone who lives in or visits the Cayman Islands. Dart is matching the full donation, as he pledged when the foundation was created, with $500,000 of that pledge also going to security-focused spending.
In a press release, officials from R3 said specific measures are being identified by Governor Martyn Roper, the elected government and relevant law enforcement agencies. The first programme funded by this security-focused donation, based on a recommendation from the R3 Readiness Committee, will be the acquisition of imaging equipment by the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service. The equipment will also be used by Customs and Border Control.
“This generous donation from the Simpson Group speaks to the R3 Cayman Foundation’s Readiness mandate by enabling preventative measures to mitigate the impact of emergencies and disasters on the Cayman community, which would include measures to mitigate the impact of violent crimes both under normal circumstances and in post-disaster situations,” said Richard Hew, chair of the committee.
“The Simpson Group donation is an example of how R3 donors can direct their financial contributions to be used for a particular area of focus that aligns with R3’s objectives while leaving it to R3 to determine the most efficient and effective mechanisms to support that area of focus for the benefit of the community,” he added.
As principal for R3, Governor Martyn Roper has certain oversight powers under R3’s constitution to ensure its good governance. It has asked him for advice on additional programmes the foundation can support to enhance national security. Support for enhanced radar coverage of Cayman’s territorial waters is also being explored with the coastguard.
Since its creation in 2020, R3 said it has donated to more than 30 local charitable organisations and government departments and authorities that provide emergency preparedness and relief for natural disasters and societal crises. It was seeded with CI$1 million from Ken Dart, the islands’ wealthiest investor, developer and landowner. He pledged a further CI$4 million in matching contributions made to R3 by other donors, which officials said is almost all allocated, so more cash has been pledged by the billionaire.
“The R3 Cayman Foundation has attracted donations nearing the original matching pledge of CI$4 million by the Kenneth B. Dart Foundation,” said Jackie Doak, the Dart foundation’s director. “Inspired by this latest gift from the Simpson Group, the Kenneth B. Dart Foundation has raised its matching pledge with conviction that the Cayman community will continue its dedicated financial support of the skilled non-profit organisations that provide crisis support services.”
The match of the Simpson Group donation and another million matching pledge increases the commitment to R3 to CI$6.5 million, officials said.
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Category: Local News
What Cayman should be investing in are some machines that use recycled paper to make paper cups, plates and egg cartons like these machines https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/recycle-paper-cup-making-machine.html
All sorts of talk about “sustainability” and no real effort towards it.
Invest in one of those machines, put it at the landfill and ACTUALLY do something with all this paper we throw in to the landfill!
If Government invested in the machine, the country could produce the plates, cups etc and sell them to restaurants for cheaper than imported.
Meanwhile the pile of jewelry that was stolen from the Customs “secure” lockup goes uninvestigated.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
carribean dubai bay islands…super rich y super poor…
Upper middle class, where even those with >$100k/a household income are struggling month to month.
Please equip our RCIPS and CBC officers with body cameras and front/rear dash cams for their vehicles. This would need the appropriate legislation to govern the use of the data and release in the public interest requests.
They would reveal a lifetime of domino and euchre tournament footage.
that would be good for us to be able to go back and review to see if they were letting offenses pass by them without them stopping.
…equip them with basic education – reading, writing and arithmetic, to be exact, would even be more helpful…. perhaps the number of cases thrown out of court would decrease dramatically…….
If CSR laws require 2% of net profits reinvested back into the communities from which the operational profit is derived, then we can infer that Simpson must be netting at least $50mln in net profit off of the Cayman Islands portfolio. What is that number as a proportion of total annual SOL fuel sales? Does OfReg retain those stats? If not, why not? Let’s see them.
Implies an annual profit of at least $500 per every adult and child in the Cayman Islands (generously assuming 100,000 population). If that’s just Sol’s end, how ripped off are we?
Clive Calder is much wealthier billionaire investor, better person, colossal philanthropic donor, and far lower-key resident in the Cayman Islands. Where Ken Dart chose to terminate thousands of reliant and loyal workers at the outset of COVID corporate hardships, sparing himself $6mln in monthly recurring payroll expense, he credited back just a whiff of that to seed R3. That’s not CSR. It’s not even an effective community apology. Meanwhile, in that same month in 2020, Clive Calder’s family foundation, ELMA, contributed $107mln to COVID-19 programs and assistance in Africa. That’s what proportionality should look like in the billionaire’s club.
https://allafrica.com/stories/202005150103.html
Lower key resident until your write-up….
Billionaires have long come and gone in the Cayman Islands. Some reside full-time, anchor, or call it home for part of the year. Many of them handily outrank Ken Dart’s #822 KYD$2.8bn on the Forbes billy list. This isn’t a new thing, and we haven’t historically made any big deal of it. We’d have to imagine that’s why they enjoy coming here. So it’s all the more galling for Ken Dart’s minions to suggest he is the wealthiest investor, or to self-promote hollow pocket-lint social gestures from three years ago and hail those as proportionate community efforts that balance-off what Cayman’s given and what he’s taken. The social score is acutely lopsided.
List all of those who were “terminated”. I’ll wait.
“never let a foreigner be more wealthy than your wealthiest local”
oops
DART our money pays for security. And they are overpaid.
Try donating to an organisation that needs the help.
how about a weather radar?
it doesn’t need money, it would use some brain
Lol 😅😅
H’bout a glass crusher or three too?
Troubling to say they least, Do the wealthy, Recently, domiciled, know something that the rest of us don’t ?
So didn’t Parkland Fuel Corporation of Canada purchase 75% of SOL Investment Ltd in 2018 with options to purchase the remaining 25% ? And the Simpson’s in turn became shareholders in the now expanded Parkland Group. Wouldn’t Parkland now be the owner of Sol ?
ol big boys club! lol
There’s really no evidence that KenDart is even the wealthiest billionaire resident in the Cayman Islands. Just popular myth and self promotion supporting that assertion. Who can honestly say for sure without supporting ledgers and a nominee company decoder? Certainly an inflated sense of self-importance. There will be all sorts of bold posturing right up until the environmental bill arrives to clawback proceeds from 20th century industrial families. Then this fabled wealth of Dart will vanish into the ether, along with many unkept promises.
My own wish would be getting Dart out of the Caymans. With his record he should have never been allowed to come here and take over our greedy “leaders”.
It’s not the Hawaiis
It’s not the Caymans
It’s the Cayman Islands
General reminder that R3 was supposed to be a fund to help the everyday poor people of the Cayman Islands weather COVID-19. It was founded on a tiny fraction of a single month’s payroll laid off by DART in the opening months of the pandemic. Not only should all of that money been allocated, but any leftovers shouldn’t be used to prop government department budgets already clocking in the 9 figures. What a sham.
All this money and the main issue is the corruption in the RCIPS. How about telling them to do work. I haven’t seen a radar gun out since Christmas.
That’s because it’s starting to get too hot for them to leave their vehicles.
radar guns are not police work,it’s revenue generation ,nothing else.
solving crimes an locking up criminals an ensuring the safety of the general public is police work.dont confuse the two.
Yes, because speeding never causes any issues for public safety
Traffic stops are usually one of the biggest leads in any investigation because they can find evidence in cars. not only that it’s absolutely a crisis on our island all these car wrecks. Let’s hope the next disaster is not someone wrecking into you and your family or someone you love and then dying because of reckless drivers on these roads everyday.
I’m not really too keen on this but understand the motivation. The bigger question is why do sponsors feel that current security is inadequate, it’s almost a subtle hint at Govt’s/The Governors inability to organise & stem a proactive campaign themselves with cash & corruption squandering money everywhere else without accountability and the PPM he’ll bent spending cash on a cruise port.
Was there a definition of “imaging equipment”? Hopefully not photocopiers.
I believe it’s the whole body scanners they use at airports where you get to see the naked body under the clothes.
Yep, CBC are desperate to ogle at naked images of incoming passengers, it’s the flipside of not allowing pornography in Cayman