Opposition members walk out

Members of the Opposition staged a walk out at the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday afternoon after Speaker of the House Mary Lawrence asked Arden McLean to leave following a comment he made about Premier McKeeva Bush.

Proceedings halted for 15 minutes while Mrs. Lawrence met with Mr. McLean in her office after he refused to withdraw a comment relating to the premier.

When both returned, the Speaker asked Mr. McLean to withdraw from the chamber for the remainder of the day.

As Mr. McLean left, the other four Opposition members went with him.

The walkout came during a debate on a bill to amend the Tax Concessions Law (1999 Revision). Mr. McLean had been questioning why the government was proposing amendments to a law to expand the types of companies Cabinet could exempt from new taxes. The existing law refers to taxes that may be enacted in the future, such as income, corporate or profits taxes.

The government was seeking to add the wording “any company whose operations the Governor [in Cabinet] deems to be in the national interest” to the law. Currently, the law refers only to “exempted companies,” which are companies that are registered in Cayman but do not operate locally.

“Their tying in other companies, whether it is for the Cabinet to have the authority to give tax exemptions to companies who are operating here or whether it is for expediency or political favours, that is what the result of this amendment will mean – that Cabinet will be able, if a company is coming into this country, to decide whether it is in the interest of the country to give them tax exemptions,” Mr. McLean said.

During his debate, Mr. McLean cited, as a possible example of a company that might be exempted from such taxes, a developer of a port in East End.

This led to Mr. Bush questioning the relevance of the East End member’s comments and accusing him of being in “Never Never Land”.

“What is he debating?”, Mr. Bush asked.

At this point, Mr. McLean made his comment about the premier, which the Speaker said contravened the Legislative Assembly’s Standing Orders which state that no member shall impute improper motives to another member.

Mr. Bush insisted that Mr. McLean “unequivocally” withdraw the remark.

The Speaker ordered that Mr. McLean’s comments be struck from the record of the Legislative Assembly.

After the PPM members left the Chamber, the premier said he had been “at pains to try to find out where the member for East End was going and what he was trying to say” and claimed the PPM members had merely been “playing to the gallery” and trying to upstage the government.

He insisted the amendments to the Tax Concession Law were beneficial to Cayman and would attract new business.

With North Side independent member Ezzard Miller absent from the Legislative Assembly because he is attending meetings overseas, the government voted unanimously to give the amendments bill a second reading. The amendments will now be considered by a House committee and set for a third and final reading before again being voted on.

Speaking outside the Assembly Building afterward, People’s Progressive Movement member Alden McLaughlin said he and his colleagues had left in solidarity with Mr. McLean because they believed his statement about Mr. Bush was correct and did not need to be withdrawn.

He added that he believed the amendments to enable Cabinet to determine which companies would receive tax exemptions would lead to more decisions relating to finances being made “behind closed doors”.

Mr. McLean, speaking to reporters after the meeting was adjourned, said “there was no way I was withdrawing my remark”.

“I have to leave and go home with some principles and I will not allow any government in there to truncate the future of the generations to come, and that is precisely what this [law] is doing,” Mr. McLean said.