On 6 October, 2006, Cayman Net News carried a headline story titled Mac challenges Chuckie and the Caymanian Compass carried a headline story titled Bush refutes Clifford on Turtle Farm
It is unfortunate that neither newspaper bothered to contact me for a comment to ensure a balanced story before publishing it.
In the Cayman Net News Mr. McKeeva Bush said that I had told blatant lies in the Legislative Assembly on the Turtle Farm issue and that I made these accusations during his absence. I cannot be held accountable for his absence during the debate. He was off the island on family business and that is understandable but the business of the Legislative Assembly must continue and so it did and I must remind Mr. Bush that it was his colleague, Mr. Rolston Anglin, that started the debate on the matter. It was my responsibility to respond on the Government’s behalf and so I did.
So let us examine who has told blatant lies.
First of all the verbatim hansard report of the debate on this matter shows (and it is available for public inspection) that I said I advised against, not that I voted against, these irregular situations during Mr. McKeeva Bush’s time as Minister and Chairman of the Cayman Turtle Farm.
Mr. Bush in his usual style has deliberately manipulated the facts and has said that the records show that I voted in favour of these things that I am now criticizing.
It was my responsibility as permanent secretary to facilitate his agenda and to vote for his policies at board meetings. Why did he not disclose that fact instead of dishonestly suggesting that as the permanent secretary I was a free agent to vote as I wished?
Mr. Bush’s most blatant distortion and misrepresentation was his flaunting of the minutes of the board meeting of the 30 June 2004 while saying that I (and the rest of the then board) approved the salary increase for the Cayman Turtle Farm staff because it was a part of the 2004/05 budget, which was approved at that meeting to allow the staff a 6 per cent increase in salary.
Of course we approved that increase and it was properly budgeted for, but Mr. Bush is well aware that that was not the salary increase that I was referring to. I said very clearly and it is recorded in the verbatim hansard report that I was referring to the additional salary increase of approximately 13 per cent, which was awarded by the board less than two months before the May 2005 General Elections when he was still Chairman and some nine months after I had resigned as permanent secretary and as a member of the Board.
Why didn’t Mr. Bush flaunt the minutes of the 29 March, 2005, to the Caymanian Compass and the Cayman Net News. He wouldn’t do so because they would prove that he was misrepresenting the facts and also because in those minutes it clearly shows who his favorite employees are at the Farm.
And yet Mr. Bush has the audacity to say that I told blatant lies. As a professed born again Christian he ought to now do the righteous thing and admit publicly that he has misled the people of this country.
There are key facts that even Mr. Bush in his rather feeble attempt to explain himself out of this situation has had to admit. These facts are that the contracts for the redevelopment of the Cayman Turtle Farm were not tendered and that GC Ventures Inc., the company that was brought in to facilitate the financing for the redevelopment, comprised of Mr. David Berry who was Mr. Bush’s business partner (Mr. Bush prefers to call him business associate or real estate agent working in his firm, Cambridge, as if that somehow makes it OK), Mr. Suresh Prasad who is Mr. Bush’s close acquaintance and Mr. Carson Wynne who it was discovered had bankruptcy issues. Mr. Bush also could not deny that the Cayman Turtle Farm paid GC Ventures US$594,948.83.
I hope that this sets the record straight as I have neither the time nor inclination to go back and forth with Mr. Bush and his agents on this matter. I trust that he will be touched to do the right thing and admit that he has deliberately misled the public and ask them for forgiveness.
Charles E. Clifford
Minister of Tourism, Environment, Investment and Commerce
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