Dwayne Seymour

| 28/04/2025

Dwayne “John John” Seymour (55), Bodden Town East (incumbent)
Minister for Border Control, Labour & Culture, Sustainability & Climate Resiliency, and Wellness

Biography:

Seymour was first elected to parliament (then called the Legislative Assembly) in 2009, one of three successful candidates for the multi-member constituency of Bodden Town. In that election, he ran with the UDP and sat on the government backbenches until 2012 in the UDP administration.

On 11 December 2012, Premier McKeeva Bush was arrested for a number of alleged offences. Following his arrest, his former Cabinet colleagues supported a no-confidence motion filed by the opposition in the Legislative Assembly, which resulted in the downfall of the UDP administration.

The PPM, then in opposition, agreed to support the remaining Cabinet members in a minority government by offering to ensure that there would be a quorum in the Legislative Assembly. The governor agreed to appoint Julianna O’Connor-Connolly as the new premier to head the government until the general election on 22 May 2013.

Seymour was elevated to a Cabinet position, serving as Minister for Community Affairs, Gender and Housing for a few months until the elections. He and the other minority government members formed the People’s National Alliance (PNA) to campaign for re-election as a group, but only O’Connor-Connolly was successful.

Seymour lost in part because of the controversies surrounding the Bodden Town dump proposal, which was very unpopular in the district. He later claimed that he had never supported the idea of relocating Grand Cayman’s landfill to Bodden Town and that he and his UDP colleagues at the time were “thrown under the bus” by then-premier Bush over the issue.

He ran as an independent in the 2017 General Election for the new single-member constituency of Bodden Town East, which he won decisively due in part to his emphatic position calling for a freeze on all work permits “on day one”, a policy opposed by the PPM.

The result of the post-election horsetrading was a PPM-led coalition called the Government of National Unity with Alden McLaughlin as premier. At the end of May that year, with the inducement of another Cabinet post and the support of his constituents, Seymour joined the coalition, despite differences in immigration policy goals.

He was rewarded with the position of Minister of Health, Environment, Culture and Housing, which he held throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. As health minister, he appeared on almost every panel at the COVID-10 press briefings.

Seymour ran in the April 2021 elections on the PPM-Alliance ticket. For the first seven months of the PACT/UPM administration, he sat on the opposition benches, but in November 2021, he crossed the floor of the House and joined the PACT government following invitations to do so by Jay Ebanks and Chris Saunders. On 1 December 2021, Seymour was sworn in as parliamentary secretary to three ministers.

In October 2022, Seymour led a confidence motion in the government in response to the PPM’s no-confidence motion. But he was called out by former premier Sir Alden McLaughlin as the person who had been leading the charge to bring the PACT Government down.

In March 2023, Saunders resigned from PACT. In the resulting Cabinet reshuffle, Seymour became a minister, taking on Saunders’ border control and labour portfolio. In September 2023, Seymour resigned from the PACT Government, crossing the floor for the second time with a scathing attack on Premier Panton.

In mid-November 2023, Wayne Panton was ousted as premier by his Cabinet and replaced by O’Connor-Connolly, after which PACT was renamed the United People’s Movement (UPM). Seymour rejoined the group, crossing the floor for the third time in a single administration, to retake his position as border control and labour minister.

On 31 October 2024, four members of the UPM resigned, leaving a five-member minority government. Seymour was given the additional responsibilities of Wellness and Climate & Sustainability, despite previous dismissive comments about the environment and climate change and his criticisms of the Department of Environment and the National Conservation Council.

In February 2025, it was announced that Seymour had joined the PPM for the general election in April.

Seymour was born on 28 July 1969 and grew up in Gun Square, Bodden Town. His official biography does not list any academic qualifications or achievements. He worked for Cayman Airways for 16 years (December 1985 to December 2001) and at some point was promoted to be the airline’s regional and international airport manager. He also served as the project manager for customer service development and training.

He is a certified level 5 security trainer and an aviation security consultant, and is IATA certified. He started his own security company, Airport Professional Services (APS), in 2001.

Court case:

  • In 2011, Seymour was charged with perverting the course of justice when he allegedly implied to a security guard not to tell the authorities that he had been involved in a fight with a man at the Grand Cayman Beach Suites. The incident took place on 1 May, when Seymour went to the hotel looking for his wife at the time, believing she was there with a man she was having an affair with. During the trial, he admitted that he had tried to trick his wife into thinking he was in the hospital that night. He was acquitted of all charges.

Other controversies:

  • As a candidate for the 2009 elections, he forgot to declare by the deadline that his business, Airport Professional Services, had a contract with the government’s airline, Cayman Airways. After he won a seat, a group of Bodden Town voters challenged the election result on that basis. However, they were unsuccessful because it was not made before the deadline for challenges.

  • Whne he was Minister of Health, Environment, Culture and Housing during the 2017-2021 administration, the ministry was plagued by scandal and failure, including financial irregularities at the HSA surrounding security staff overtime, the Department of Environmental Health’s regular failure to pick up garbage and a massive, out-of-control fire at the George Town dump.

  • In April 2019, Seymour amused LA with a homophobic ‘joke’, referring to the month as “Gaypril”.

  • In April 2020, during the pandemic, a video was posted on social media that appeared to show Seymour’s wife working out with a personal trainer, which was potentially in contravention of the government’s shelter-in-place order that was imposed at that time. When CNS reporter Wendy Ledger asked him about this at a COVID-10 press briefing, Seymour famously asked her if she was “brave” or “stupid”, and gave a rambling response with unexplained references to Mary, Joseph, Jesus and a donkey.
  • At around 11pm on Friday, 28 October 2022, Seymour crashed into a CUC light pole on Shamrock Road in Prospect. No other vehicles were involved. The RCIPS later said that the police officers who were sent to the scene did not breathalyse or arrest him because they did not suspect he had been drinking. Seymour told Cayman Marl Road that he had come from his office and was tired.

  • Shortly after midnight on 8 August 2024, Seymour was involved in another road collision with a stationary object, this time on Anton Bodden Drive, but once again, he was not tested for alcohol. He received a serious headwound after the vehicle he was driving, believed to be a government-owned SUV, collided with an excavator arm that was in the road. He was taken to hospital, but the RCIPS confirmed that no blood sample was taken from him. “I believe someone had tried to kill me,” Seymour said afterwards during an address to parliament.

  • In July 2024, Seymour, the labour minister who also has a private business employing low-wage workers, rejected the findings of the Minimum Wage Advisory Committee and said he wanted a do-over of the report they submitted last year. The UPM Government did not comment on his conflict of interest in the matter.

  • He has consistently pushed for the East-West Arterial Road extension to be built without first doing an environmental impact assessment, contrary to all expert advice.

  • As the sustainability minister in the lame-duck minority UPM government, Seymour tried to pass the contentious amendments to the National Conservation Act that would have gutted the law. However, he withdrew the bill because it did not have enough votes to pass.

Sources:
Cayman News Service
CIG

Category:

Comments are closed.

«
»