JOCC calls for financial independence from UK’s ‘big stick’
(CNS): Premier Juliana O’Connor-Connolly has said the Framework for Fiscal Responsibility, which gives the United Kingdom the power to veto the Cayman Islands budget if it falls foul of the strict criteria, should be reviewed. She said that this jurisdiction needs to be more financially independent with “our own internal FFR” and described the UK’s power as a “big stick”.
When Wayne Panton was premier, he also raised this issue, suggesting that the FFR should be reviewed because the cap on debt could prevent this country from making the necessary investment in climate resiliency.
The FFR is a set of metrics put in place back in 2011, when Cayman was facing significant difficulties with public finances, to give the UK ultimate control over government spending and avoid any of this jurisdiction’s debt liabilities.
However, the criteria are very strict and severely limit the country’s ability to borrow. Panton described the criteria as “too conservative”, which will make it difficult for future governments to invest in the type of resilience that will be needed as climate change impacts the country more and more.
Appearing on Radio Cayman on Wednesday after returning from the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) conference in Samoa, O’Connor-Conolly noted that Bermuda doesn’t have the same limitations on its public finance act and said Cayman had proven itself over its fiscal prudence.
She said that she would prefer to see the country adopt its own internal FFR. Cayman had “to grow up”, she said, and officials should not have to go thousands of miles, cap in hand, to negotiate over the restrictions.
“Having an FFR in place… means there is an inherent distrust in our people, that we are not capable of handling our own finances, yet each year… we have a surplus… There are aspects of the FFR that… can be very beneficial that I would like to see entrenched, but in our own domestic legislation. I don’t think we should have a big stick over us.”
She said that if it did not work, it would be up to the voters to deal with that. Although she accepted that the FFR provided financial stability, she said that as the country matures, this was one thing she wanted to look at more and encourage Caymanians to have more “belief in ourselves”.
However, since taking up the position of premier, O’Connor-Conolly has been widely criticised for the amount of spending in the 2024/25 budget, in particular, the development of a costly new high school on Cayman Brac. The existing facility, the Layman E. Scott High School, currently has just 155 students.
In her role as minister of finance, she has also added to the borrowing over the next two years and is currently going through the process of soliciting a bid for a new $150 million loan to cover the costs of capital projects this year and next.
Following the recent Finance Committee meeting in parliament earlier this month, when the government steered through additional spending of almost $52 million this year, the anticipated surplus in the original budget of $44.5 million has been reduced to $16.5 million.
While the government remains within the current limits of the FFR, there are concerns that it is now sailing closer and closer to the winds of a potential deficit.
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Category: Government Finance, Politics
I have a PhD, ABC, and Do-Ray-Me in Finance, and I can tell you JuJu is correct. Besides the $50M school on Cayman Brac, we need a $50M school for every 2,000 head of population in Cayman. Don’t let the UK stop us from doing the right thing. Next thing you know they will want us to allow same-sex marriage.
If she has gotten away with what she has spent money on in the last 12m ( a school with a build cost of $500,000 per a child attending) , imagine if there were no restrictions. Absolutely terrifying!
Half a million dollars pulled out of the budget for Pirates Week parties. Nuff said.
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.
time for class action lawsuit against the incompetence of the civil service and cig.
Ruled by Labour!? No, thank you. Their new budget came out today. The British taxpayer is getting absolutely shafted. I don’t want that for us.
i know its halloween…. but this terrifying beyond belief!
This is completely stupid. The only thing they want is to spend all of the money we make for them. Welcome to Jamaica if we go independent. At least Jamaica has beaches and things to do, tourists here have very little. Cayman would be doomed. Get rid of this horrible grifting woman and her fellow cronies.
Exactly! She scraped up our finances and took it to Jamaica and the Eastern Caribbean pretending that we are rolling in the money. Those countries have more revenue sources than we do. If they don’t management their money properly that is on them. She should be more concerned on how we manage our funds. I am so glad that at least we have The FFR to hold her and her fellow jackasses back from totally destroying us.
With the developments today she has to go, and now, they all do. An early election and decent candidates PLEASE!!!
She needs to go NOW!
Andre and crew just made that happen.
She wants to get that monstrosity school building up on the bluff. I have no problems with the Brac getting a new building but from what I have heard they do not need one the size she is planning on building. She needs to understand it is not her money. When they waste our money it effects all of us.
Our government has continuously proven that this existing FFR is necessary and that the government is indeed “(in)capable of handling our own finances”.
And after reading the compass, hopefully this will be the last we see of ju ju
Our records are not clean, prudent, and do not finish the year with a genuine surplus. The Balance sheet has omitted $2,200,000,000.00 in liabilities for YEARS. That’s >200% of GDP, missing every year from the official count of things. Those are the findings of the Auditor General as well, and why no OAG has given a positive opinion on our prudence. Rather than put hat in hand and ask for a responsible path out of this mess with the FCO, we instead witness the crooked weasel thoughts of entrenched corruption.
Says the lady that built a stadium in the middle of nowhere in Cayman Brac along with 50 million school and 8+ million accommodations to build that school. She is totally gone off jezzuum man
What an ignorant ‘woman’!
Let’s call it what it is- She merely wants the unilateral authority to pave more driveways in the Brac.
Given the amount she’s spent in the last few months alone, these restrictions are more than appropriate.
first toe in the water of independence. they will massage everyone into believing the UK is at fault for such things. dont listen to them, Mac said the UK was restricting civil servants last week, now this. DO. NOT. LISTEN. an independent Cayman looks like Jamaica.
and we will all leave
I don’t trust our government to find its way out of a paper bag let alone fully control our finances. I don’t trust a Labour government anymore so for that matter but at least the rules set in place by the UK as a whole prevent our local clown show from wasting even more of our money.
This is pure madness from Premier Juliana. She is in denial and cannot be trusted to manage the fiscal affairs of the country.
The proof is illustrated with her vanity project the “New School of Opulence” or the New Cayman Brac High School that will cost nearly KYD 70m to service a student population of 150 students maximum at any given time.
The Brac has always been a welfare state and gotten worse during her tenure and Moses Kirkconnell in Cayman Politics. There are many examples in all three islands.
There should been investigations into the numerous examples of fiscal mismanagement by successive governments since 2006 to present day that involves incompetent and corrupt Cabinet members and inept senior civil servants that lead the projects on behalf of their respective ministries.
The time has come for FCDO reviews and investigations before we become a third world country.
None of us want to see Cayman bankrupt.
We don’t have enough saved for a rainy day.
Our borrowing capacity is our back-up.
Let’s not fritter that away.
The boom period receipts were frittered away long ago, without any provision for rainy-day reserves, where trusted gatekeepers in charge endorsed the scam. The CIG Balance sheet is deliberately omitting at least $2 billion in maturing healthcare and pension liabilities, that aren’t fundable. Ken Jefferson, pictured, has made this admission and with a decade of political support from JOCC and other deceitful parliamentarians, in a conspiracy to appear to be in compliance with FFR. If Cayman loses the UK backstop on our declared debt, and with that, the umbrella of preferential AA credit rating, Cayman alone immediately downgrades to high default risk, sub-investment grades, where debt service obligation costs skyrocket. Those that can leave will leave, before the taxes. The Finance Sector will flee on the ironic headline heard around the world. There will be no economic pillar to pay for the cleanup costs. All of this happens soon, teed up by power-drunk morons, and long before climate resiliency concerns.
Instead let’s have a festival of spending, what could possibly go wrong?
If the debt cap was raised to ADDRESS CLIMATE RESILIENCY ONLY then it COULD be entertained.
2011 was the year that UDP was in power and the Foreign Commonwealth Office had to step in and stop the China Harbor port deal that McKeeva, Rolston et al tried to push through without a proper tendering process. Madness!!
Where are the reports from the Auditor General’s Offices to go before the PAC for the public domain so that people know now what is driving the increased borrowing???
It would appear that government is failing to produce sufficient information for the Auditor General to complete their audit work.
Can we please get a list of what is outstanding???
Minister Jay Ebanks claimed that the halt on housing construction was due to playing catch up filing Annual Reports which is rubbish.
This was a play at words as the article also reported a loss for NHDT for fiscal year end 2021. We are now 2024 so any lack of financial reporting is under his watch!!
What the public needs to know is what was the original site preparation budget? What was the cost to construct the homes? What was the overall expected budget costs???
I’m waiting.
Ken Jefferson has relayed that at least KYD$2.2 billion in maturing civil servant healthcare and pension liabilities are missing from the CIG Balance Sheet – specifically omitted with endorsement from successive Cabinets, to appear to remain in compliance with FFR. It is just one of the active financial conspiracies that prevents the OAG from ascribing a passing accounting grade.
https://caymannewsservice.com/2024/03/cig-still-dodging-ci2-2b-cs-retirees-healthcare-liability/
Government spending can not create prosperity – unless you are in their inner circle and getting government ckntracts.
Looking for the power to raise minister’s salaries by 9 million percent.
If you think the FFR is a pair of handcuffs, just wait until our politicians run up the debt and completely shackle Cayman until the end of days.
Sounds like Mac is whispering bitter nothings in JuJu’s ear, flipping the finger at UK again. This might an opportune time for UK to cut the rope and let Cayman hang itself, although this is not likely to happen. More probable is that the FCO demand that pension and healthcare liabilities be moved onto the books and a National tax framework be implemented to address the deficit. This however is all hypothetical and such political bellyaching is to be expected prior to elections.
That’s the path we’re on. We know it is because in the opening minutes of this regime, JOCC sought to immediately exercise their legislative powers to apply blanket indemnity to Cabinet members, even against crime. They are truly above the law, presiding over a mountain of lies, all coming due.
The lack of income taxes (notwithstanding that work permits are a form of income tax), plus lack of property taxes, are the only things keeping the financial services expats (and thus the financial services industry) here. If that changes, Cayman is f**ked.
With the advertised 8% annual return on rental properties, I doubt anyone will be leaving. Taxed in other countries will still be higher and lets not get started on the median salary in other countries. Not comparable to Cayman.
Juliana, needs handcuffs and footcuffs to stop wasting the money and to stop running all over the world to attend rubbish that does not benefit us.
To the pillory with her!