Cayman will have wait until next week to hear what plans government has in place to address Caymanian employment issues, as an insufficient number of Public Accounts Committee members led to the postponement of Thursday’s hearing.
PAC chairman Roy McTaggart, in response to Cayman Compass queries on the postponement, said he was unable to gather enough committee members for the hearing.
He said he received apologies from Joey Hew, who was off island, and members Bernie Bush and McKeeva Bush, both of whom said they could not make the meeting.
The committee consists of six members, four of whom must be present before a meeting can be held.
“I am disappointed that we were not able to obtain a quorum for [Thursday’s] hearing. We have, however, rescheduled the hearing for next week, Thursday, June 27, at the same time [10am],” he said.
The PAC was set to examine the Auditor General’s performance report, ‘Improving Employment Prospects for Caymanians (May 2024),’ which expressed concern about the need to better protect and predict employment prospects for Caymanians.
The government spent $144 million on improving Caymanians’ employment prospects between 2019 and 2023, according to the report.
The report found that the Cayman Islands job market is proving strong in some areas, reaching ‘full employment’ by global standards, but there were hurdles for those seeking work, especially for higher-paid positions.
Wesley Howell, chief officer for the Ministry of Border Control, Labour and Culture, together with Jeremy Scott, director of Workforce Opportunities and Residency Cayman (WORC), and Lyneth Monteith, acting chief officer for the Ministry of Education were scheduled to appear before the committee.
The report recommended that Workforce Opportunities and Residency Cayman create a forecast for long-term employment needs and examine the effectiveness of its job-placement programmes.
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