We refer to the controversy in the press on employment related matters.
The wholesale grants of Caymanian Status to about 3,000 persons by the United Democratic Party and then Leader of Government, which with dependents probably totalled or will total 10,000 persons with Caymanian Status – will never be forgotten by some people in the Cayman Islands.
Many deserved status and are good citizens and would have received it from the Immigration Board, but many should not have been granted status.
There were too many grants too fast and they should not have been granted by Cabinet. The Immigration Board requires formal applications, references and police records and must follow the criteria laid down by the Law. Cabinet does not need to and did not fully do so.
The effect in the short term is suddenly creating thousands of Caymanian status holders to fill jobs that were being before held by Caymanians and to directly compete for about 20 per cent to 30 per cent of the jobs available to Caymanians.
The schools, which in the year 2000 could accommodate Caymanian children and which by law must accept Caymanians, now cannot cope and there is a strain on medical and social services.
Some of the present Government ministers should think carefully and try to avoid making statements that damage the Caymanian/ non-Caymanian relationship.
Why did not the opposition leader and the opposition MLA’s at the time not take more steps to stop the harmful grants? What are the UDP’s Leaders solutions to the hurt that this has caused? Caymanians cannot wait until the next election for promises from him to solve this immigration problem. Why is a UDP member of the Legislative Assembly now asking for rollover exemptions to come to the Legislative Assembly when UDP did not bring the most important – 3,000 status grants by cabinet to the Legislative Assembly where the public could have heard the matter discussed and had more input?
McKeeva Bush tried to get some MLA’s to do a list of 12 persons for the grant of status during his time as a Minister in the 1996 to 2000 government. The Ministers at the time, which included us, pointed out to him the damages of this move even for such a small number and that the Immigration Board was the proper channel to do status grants. We abruptly stopped him.
Why was the party system, in this case, the UDP allowed to hurt Cayman this way? If there were strong independent Ministers and Members of the Legislative Assembly as we always had in Governments before the two party system, this may not have happened as we proved by stopping Mr. Bush from doing similar grants.
There is a saying ‘what the party (or sometimes the leader) wants the party gets.’ Power may be nearly absolute (and destructive) as we have seen in other Caribbean Islands.
The long term effects are still to come. Caymanians should never forget how a part of their birthright was given away by the UDP Cabinet and its leader, without the PPM’s effective opposition to it in the Legislative Assembly.
Truman Bodden
John McLean
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