NHDT meetings cost $8,500 per month

The Cayman Islands National Housing Development Trust Board held 170 meetings of the full board and subcommittees between January 2010 and October 2011, which cost $186,325, according information obtained by the Caymanian Compass via an open records request.  

The monthly average of what was spent per meeting of the board or its subcommittees was just less than $8,500, according to those documents. 

The highest expense months for housing trust board meetings and subcommittees occurred between February 2011 and May 2011, when between $11,600 and $14,950 was spent per month on those meetings.  

Questions concerning housing trust board stipends arose last fall after news of a misconduct investigation into the agency and at least one of its former board members was revealed in October. The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service said last week the investigation into those allegations continues. 

Meanwhile, according to the records obtained under Cayman’s Freedom of Information Law, 18 board meetings and subcommittee meetings were held in March 2010 at a cost of $12,900. By way of comparison, 10 meetings held in February 2011 cost $14,000. The difference in cost per meeting is nearly double.  

In August and September 2011, seven board meetings and subcommittees were held each month for the national housing trust; but the cost of hold those meetings in August was $10,000 and the same number of meetings in September was $8,500.  

The records indicate, for those two months, the same was paid for regular meetings of the board; some $2,100 each month. However, costs for ‘tenders meetings’ in August were $6,500 while September tenders meetings cost $3,200.  

Monthly meeting costs may have varied based on how many board members attended.  

According to Housing Minister Mike Adam, the chairman of Cayman’s National Housing Development Trust board of directors had been receiving payments of $600 per meeting attended while other board members got $300 a meeting. 

Mr. Adam told the Caymanian Compass in October that housing trust board members, at some point within the past year, lowered quorum requirements for meetings from five attendees to just three.  

Minister Adam said the board meeting payments and quorum decisions were made without ministerial input.  

“It’s a pretty hefty stipend,” Mr. Adam said at the time.  

According to the Memorandum and Articles of Association for the National Housing Trust Board of Directors, directors may receive remuneration as set out in those documents.  

In October, authorities arrested a 59-year-old man in connection with a misconduct investigation into the agency and at least one of its former board members. That former board member is on police bail.  

“[The 59-year-old man] was arrested in terms of sections 13 and 17 of the Anti-Corruption Law, 2010, as was as on suspicion of obtaining property by deception,” read an RCIPS statement.  

Sections 13 and 17 of Cayman’s Anti-Corruption Law relate to breach of trust and abuse of public office, respectively.  

Following the arrest of one of its former members – who is not being named by the Caymanian Compass because he has not been charged – the board of directors of the Cayman Islands National Housing Development Trust was reformed with some new appointees and some returning members.  

Then-chairman Edward S. McLaughlin and then-deputy chairman Edlin Myles were not reappointed.  

Rayal Bodden – a member of the board who had previously resigned – was appointed as the new chairman. Other members named included Allan Bush, Michael Godfrey, Ann-Marie Powell, Jaron Jackson, Terry-Ann Arch and Delia Hydes.