Public release of NBF report delayed
Red Bay Church of God, attended by Juliana O’Connor Connolly, the current speaker of the House and former UDP deputy premier, was one of many churches which received cash from the NBF, though it later returned the money
(CNS) The public release of a report by the auditor general on the controversial Nation Building Fund, which was created by former premier McKeeva Bush, has been postponed, officials from the auditor general’s office have said. Officials said a press conference scheduled for Monday morning to coincide with the publication of the long-anticipated report has also been cancelled because members of the Legislative Assembly need more time to review the document, despite its release to the LA more than one week ago.
Given the questions and criticisms that have surrounded the fund, in which at least $10 million of public cash was spent, mostly on church projects and grants for students falling outside the formal criteria, the auditor’s findings are expected to make interesting reading but when that can happen remains in question.
The audit office indicated its intention to examine the controversial fund in 2011 and despite numerous indications from the auditor general since the beginning of the year that the report was expected to be released, issues over the management response to the work are understood to have delayed its publication.
In a short release Friday the auditor’s office stated:
“The press briefing scheduled for 11:00 am on Monday morning relating to the performance audit report on the Management of the Nation Building Programme will be postponed to a yet to be determined date. While the Auditor General normally issues performance and public interest reports to the public about ten days after their issuance to Members of the Legislative Assembly, there is always the possibility that extra time may be needed to have all Members informed. In this instance, we have decided to delay the issuance of this important report to give Members more time for their review before making the report public.”
Efforts to contact the office Friday evening following the release of the statement were unsuccessful.
Category: Government oversight, Politics
Red Bay Church did not keep any funds received from the NBF! So why should this church be stigmatized just because The Speaker of the House is a member. The media needs to stop being malicious!
The same Speaker of the House, who in her former role as Deputy Premier, also misspent public funds on numerous travels and other occasions.
Agreed. If any, it should be Mac’s church!
“Ms O’Connor-Connolly said any church leaders who had issues with accepting the government funds should have voiced their concerns before the church made its application, rather than waiting until after the funds had been approved to tell a political candidate.”
They only returned after some other churches said no. It was not the day or the week they received it. If no other group gave back the money I doubt they would have been the first.
As Bono said “The God I know isn’t exactly short of Cash”
Yep yep yep all already known pre and post election campaign. now our Auditor comes out with a report two years after the fact. What’s wrong with this
I tire?. If the people’s money is being misspent by anyone or any department in the CIG, they could take the money and run for it wouldn’t e discovered until two or four or ,Amy more years afterwards. So sad. Yeah yeah bring on the stupid explanations. Still does not detract from the period of time it takes for these Audits to start and yes conclude.
All audits are retrospective. It is impossible to audit concurrently. The only people capable of putting it right concurrently is CIG, and the auditor merely looks at stuff they did later and point out where they went wrong, because seemingly they are so useless at spotting and addressing their own mistakes. Imagine how bad it would be if the Auditor General did not audit them – all of these mistakes and waste of public money would never be picked up, and your politicians could continue to ravage Cayman and its people of its money eternally!
One radio talk show host from his new platform of hate even said this is just another way of getting more English people here…!!!…Corruption is Corruption, even if committed by Caymanians.
I think it is unfair for CNS to post a picture of Red Bay Church of God Holiness to the title of this story when in fact they DID NOT beneifit from the NBF. When they received the cheque it was returned to Government (unchanged) with a letter saying thanks but no thanks! RBCOGH did the right thing! This is a prominent church in our islands and will continue to be – the Pastors are honest and walk by faith and not by sight! God is our provider!
OMOV needs to be enacted before they find a reason to delay it for another election cycle. Why do they treat us like unworthy children?
One Person, 18 Votes.
With such a small electorate, “National Elections” is the only resolve.
That is right, then us George Towners can elect the slate for the whole Island, including the Premier.
Who cares what those Bodden Towners, West Bayers, East Enders and North Siders want to represent them anyway?
Give me my 18 votes, at least I know what to do with them.
Sounds to me like the honeymoon period is over.
When a relationship first starts those little nuances are cute and overlooked. Over a period of time, these then turn annoying.
It sounds to me like someone in the last throws of a marriage looking to pile excuses up for an imminent divorce. If the truth was known, these are probably used to gain the single life both crave, they just need to get more money than the other party.
Auditors reports, national building fund, allegations of corruption springing up everywhere, judicial reports being requested, financial irregularities identified, etc are all adding to the grounds before an unreasonable behaviour plaint or similar is filed.
Something is gurgling in the pipe and it ain’t going to be too pleasant when it comes out!
There’s been plenty gurgling in the pipes for many a year and its about time it all came out. Time for our politicians to be accountable and honest, rather than the money-grabbing, arrogant, self-important egotistical fools we have put up with generation after generation. The sooner they all clean up their acts the better.
“… members of the Legislative Assembly need more time to review the document…”
Hmmmm, I am wondering if one of the members is doing more than just “reviewing” the document. I suspect that a certain member might be preparing a law suit.
No, they are trying to come up with a Private Members Motion to ensure gay marriage can never ever happen in these “Christian blessed islands of ours” Then they will move on to figuring out how to make the sun come up in the South and go down in the North. These things are important in this modern world of 1676.
They are preparing their answers and excuses more like.
Political interference….and people complain about Tempura…all as bad as each other!
“The Cayman Islands is steeped in corruption.”
The Cayman Islands are not steeped in corruption and no brainless expatriate on the face of this earth will ever be justified in saying so. Like every other country on the face of this earth, we had the misfortune of experiencing a single political party led by an admittedly uneducated ego maniac do a very good job at spoiling our whole apple basket. The intelligent people of this country voted that situation out of our lives years ago. Unfortunately the stigma is very persistent but by the grace of God we WILL rid ourselves of that too. ALL the ignorant, envious expatriates here who dont like that really should go home and make s8me attempt at cleaning up the country they had to run from because of governmental corruption instead of sticking their dumb noses into matters that do not concern them.
you can tell when politicians view their electorate in such contempt, as they never apologise.
They gamble our money, they accommodate their “driver” for months in a hotel at our expense. These “Honorable” people seem to think it is their right to spend our money on their own needs and when they are found out they do not admit wrong and apologise, but try and stop the information coming out and smear the names of the whistleblowers.
And then they claim they are good christians
Surprise surprise, this will never be released unless it is in an unsanitised form.
Cayman Islands transparency at work
If politicians are embarassed by what these reports show, perhaps they should question their actions in the first place and act honorably, which does make their title very ironic
Does this seem familiar? “we have decided to delay the issuance of this important report”. In the end it will be like most other investigations of shoddy and/or illegal activities. It will be kicked around a while and then be eased under the rug with the plethora of crimes that have died there.
Hahahahahahahaah…………Hahahahahahahah……..Haha……….Ha……..Ha.
The NBF, like Tempura cost the people of Cayman $10million. One was the brainchild of the sitting Premier of the day, the other the brainchild of the sitting Governor of the day and FCO boss of the day.
The review of both these stupid ideas, by the appropriate, competent authorities, were carried out under the watchful eyes of (commissioned by?) the successive Premier and the successive Governor, with much fanfare.
The fly in the ointment is that the persons producing the reports had too much integrity and obviously made NO attempt to sterilize the reports so that no egg got on the face of the sitting hierarchy, who obviously were only pretending they wanted the truth on Tempura and the NBF to be exposed.
Like the Tempura report, the NBF report obviously. not only makes the perpetrators look like fools, it makes their successors, who commissioned the reports also look like fools.
The end result is that the Tempura report, in its entirety, will NEVER see the light of day…..and…..I predict, the MBF will NEVER see the light of day, in it’s entirety either.
Why should it?
When the precedent is set by the FCO and the Governor, why should it not be followed by the sitting Government. In both cases, me and the public can like it or lump it!
$20million plus gone and wasted…………..now let us get on with wasting that $150Million on that dock…………after all…….the ones in charge told us, like “exposing” Tempura and the NBF, that they would do it……..before they got elected or appointed!
Ha…….Ha……Ha…….
sitting Premier?? Wasn’t that one of the past Premier cash cow to milk out willy- nilly?
The Sufi, read a little further before posting next time. I said “sitting Premier of the day”………. to clarify that would be McKeeva, likewise the sitting Governor of the day was not HE Helen.
Notwithstanding that clarification, I agree with your post.
Better let the proper people re-write to ‘protect the people of the cayman islands’
What a see happnin is a conspiracy to tek my seat.
Let the sanitising begin. Nothing to see here folks.
Well, ain’t that a huge surprise. If the release is postponed for any material length of time, Joe Public is bound to think that it has some really dynamite revelations and/or hard hitting criticisms. This, in particular, is one report where there cannot be any perception of an attempted to muzzle the Auditor General.
Why bring back up this Church they did the right thing return it….Lets just forget she went there…Now can we focus on the Churches who got the most $$$$ lets see pictures and here there name called out…Sick an tired of the one sided reports now
Until church and state are separated in the Cayman Islands, I will remain critical of all churches and politicians there. They are all as bad as each other no matter how you like to paint it or imagine it.
Is it because anything that alleges corruption around here gets labelled as treasonous?
This just highlights and advertises the release even more, just what Mr Swarbrick wants.