Joey Hew
Joseph X. Hew, George Town North (incumbent)
Leader of the People’s Progressive Movement (aka the Progressives) and Leader of the Opposition
Biography
Hew (55) has been a member of parliament since 2013, when he won one of the George Town seats on a PPM ticket. After the elections, he became a councillor (now parliamentary secretary) for the Ministry of Constituency Administration, Tourism and Transport. In 2017, the first elections with single-member constituencies, he won the GTN seat, and in the new government, he was minister for Commerce, Planning and Infrastructure.
Hew was re-elected in April 2021 and served as the deputy leader of the opposition until he took over as part leader in August 2024 — officially voted in during the PPM conference in January 2025. He is the fourth leader of the Progressives. Governor Jane Owen officially appointed him as leader of the opposition in October 2024 in the House of Parliament.
Hew has private sector business experience as managing director and chief operations officer of his family’s group of companies, which includes Hew’s Hotel & Restaurant Supplies, Restaurant Depot, Bon Vivant, Macdonald’s, the Office Bar, and Hew’s Janitorial.
Hew is a past president of the Cayman Islands Chamber of Commerce and headed the Cayman Islands Restaurant Association for five years until it was amalgamated into the Cayman Islands Tourism Association, where he continued to serve as a director. In addition, he has been deputy chairman of the Trade and Business Licensing Board and the Port Authority of the Cayman Islands.
In the 2001-2005 parliament, he served as a member of the Youth Parliament Committee, Ombudsman Oversight Committee, Public Accounts Committee, and was on the Council of the Parliamentary Management Commission.
Controversies:
- In August 2024, as Deputy Leader of the PPM, Hew criticised the decision made by the sustainability minister at the time, Katherine Ebanks-Wilks, to begin exit talks on the waste management deal, known as ReGen, even though a damning report on the deal by the Office of the Auditor General documented a catalogue of errors by the PPM. Hew blamed the PACT and the UPM government.
- Although Hew said in October 2024 that the proposed government referendum on whether or not Cayman should build cruise berthing facilities would not really settle the issue, on 3 February, he offered his backing to the bill. The PPM had said that they would not support any controversial legislation during this lame-duck administration, but Hew told parliament he did not think the bill was contentious.
Sources:
Cayman Islands Parliament
Cayman News Service
Category:
Change writes: Every constituency has the same issue when their MP becomes a minister. It is not that they stop caring about their area, but Cabinet members have no choice but to tackle issues at national level, and that takes budget, meetings, reports, travel, conference calls, sitting with lawyers to streamline bills and laws — all […]
