Former government backbencher McKeeva Bush laid bare the infighting among government members Friday morning, saying it got to a point where the PACT team had asked Premier Wayne Panton to resign, and he refused.
Bush, speaking on Radio Cayman’s ‘For the Record’ on Friday, said the situation in government had become difficult, especially concerning budget preparations.
He said requests for “important” projects in education, such as the new Layman E. Scott High School on Cayman Brac and teachers’ salary increases were being overlooked, causing friction and triggering calls in late September for the premier to step aside.
“He was asked to resign and some, I think, genuinely did it for concern for him health-wise… Others took the position that it was time for some changes because things was not going right, so they asked him to resign, which he refused,” Bush said.
Infighting did not stop
Bush, on Thursday tendered his resignation from the government bench, saying that he no longer had faith in PACT’s direction.
His exit has left Panton in a tough situation, leaving Parliament deadlocked at 9-9, meaning he would be unable to pass legislation or even call a meeting of the House without Opposition support.
Bush, in outlining the behind-the-scenes disputes, said he was not part of the September bid to oust the premier and decided to give Panton further time to pull the budget together.
He said on 9 Oct. he presented a memorandum to the government caucus and “I thought things would improve before we finish the budget, and we would get some of the priorities straightened out and the infighting would stop. But that didn’t happen.”
He said Thursday, 9 Nov., was exactly one month since he had presented that memo and this is why he took the decision to walk away from PACT.
It also all came to a head this week for him, he said, when a presentation of the proposed budget was made Monday and key requests for education and assistance for government pensioners were omitted.
He said they were shown a video presentation as opposed to hard copies of documents as would be expected with a proper budget for Parliament.
“[They] said that there was nothing more that we could do. Nothing was going to be accepted at that point to be added to the budget. So the things that we had asked for, [things] that [are in] my documents… things we had discussed as the priorities, I do not know if it was in there,” he said.
He said when he asked Deputy Premier Juliana O’Connor-Connolly whether she got what she asked for her education portfolio, she responded she did not get what she was promised.
Bush said the financial secretary confirmed the items he requested for the budget were not included.
He said he was focused on taking action on things that were impacting the community including crime, cost of living, CUC and immigration.
“All of these are serious issues,” he said, adding that education also needed the additional support.
He said the Cayman Brac High School was a concern and funding should have been allocated.
“She does have a serious situation up there with the Layman E. Scott school that was built in 1969 and it was even [built] with asbestos products. So trying to renovate buildings like that, we found out, that’s not a good thing. There are needs there, but that should not have been a deal breaker in any shape or form. But there were education needs that are not being provided for,” Bush said.
The Cayman Compass understands the amount sought for education was higher than last year’s budget by some $30 million.
Bush said he was not sure if, since his resignation, anything has changed with the budget, but he said it was not good for the country that its national fiscal package is not ready this close to the end of the budget cycle.
He said printing of budget documents takes weeks, and there is still not agreement on a final package, which puts the country in a difficult position.
New coalition, not elections, needed
Bush, speaking about the existing hung Parliament, said the situation can be remedied without an election.
He said he will not support going to the polls now, adding that he remains firm on his retirement and will not be contesting elections.
Bush said there is a mix of politicians in the House of those with experience and young members with good ideas that can come together and set the country right.
He disagreed with the idea of Speaker Katherine Ebanks-Wilks resigning from the chair and bringing in an outside speaker to fix the numbers issue in the House.
“I think she [Ebanks-Wilks] would be taking a tremendous political risk that she didn’t need to do,” he said.
Bush, the most senior member of Parliament, said even if a speaker from the outside is brought into the House, it still will not help much with the existing numbers.
“At times when the premier is the chairman of a Finance Committee he does not have a vote and someone was making reference to this about he [has] a casting vote. They have a vote to keep the status quo. That’s all they can do,” he said.
He said the PACT group did not have the numbers to remove the premier so there has to be a new grouping in the House to form the government.
Bush added the current situation cannot continue.
A new coalition is needed, he said, with a mix of the PACT team and the Opposition backbench.
He said he would like to see Financial Services Minister André Ebanks retain his post.
The premier and deputy premier posts would have to be shared among whatever grouping emerges, Bush said.
“It would have to be shared properly and that’s the way I think that we ought to approach it to make things work. Since nobody has the majority, that’s what you do, compromise. Politics is the heart of compromise,” he said.
Bush said he believes the deadlock will be resolved in the coming days.
Related Videos
