Tag: Kenneth Jefferson
Public purse lost $1M on failed customs IT
(CNS): The financial secretary told the Public Accounts Committee last week that the customs department was forced to write off over CI$970,000 from last year’s budget after it invested in a technology system that didn’t work.
CIG to cut proposed loan for bond pay-off
(CNS): The Cayman Islands Government has confirmed that it will meet the bond payment of US$312 million (approximately CI$261.3 million) that is due to be repaid on 24 November this year and may not need to borrow as much as previously anticipated to pay off that bond and still maintain its cash flow obligations. As […]
Public purse gets US$1M from stock exchange
(CNS): The Cayman Islands Stock Exchange has handed over a special dividend of US$1,000,000 to the public purse as a result of a profitable period over the last 18 months. CSX Chairman Anthony Travers said the government company had enjoyed a period of strong sustained growth, which was “encouraging and entirely attributable to the hard […]
Ministry rejects need to apologise over FOI
(CNS): The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development has made it clear that no one from there will be apologising over the alleged mishandling of a freedom of information request and has taken aim at the Ombudsman, suggesting her press release was “unwarranted”. A release from the office of Financial Secretary Kenneth Jefferson said the […]
Lawyer queries Cayman’s stamp duty collection
(CNS): Questions have been asked as to how the Cayman Islands Government collects stamp duty on unregistered leases and whether some people, including civil servants, are getting away with not paying while others are being squeezed by ruthless landlords in the absence of protections and rights for local renters. Peter Polack has submitted a request […]
Duty waiver grants ripe for corruption
(CNS): More than six months after the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) raised the alarm over the failures in government’s management of fee and duty waivers, the situation is now worse, according to Martin Ruben, the audit performance director. Following a change in the law so that waivers of $20,000 or more are only […]
Jefferson to lead on government books
(CNS): Financial Secretary Kenneth Jefferson has been formally identified as the person to take charge of core government’s overall financial reporting, the deputy governor has confirmed. After years of warnings from the Office of the Auditor General that a leader had to be appointed to deal with the ongoing weaknesses in government accounting, Franz Manderson told […]
Finance ministry to review CIG fees
(CNS): Minister of Finance Marco Archer has stated that government will be doing a review of the fees it charges for services, especially in the offshore sector, after it was revealed that fees are not routinely being reviewed. Although government has committed not to increase fees or introduce new taxes during this administration, Financial Secretary […]
Customs collector ‘soon come’
(CNS): Government interviewed four local people for the post of collector of customs this week in what the financial secretary said was the sixth recruitment effort by the ministry to fill the critical post. The top job in a department that generates one of the main sources of revenue for government has been vacant for […]
Ritz $6.2M duty debt still unpaid
(CNS): Government has still not collected on debt of more than six million dollars owed to the public purse from duty concessions given to the developer of the Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman. The financial secretary said that legal questions remain about who now owes the cash because the concessions were given to companies owned by the […]
