Lawmakers will return to Parliament for its final session of the parliamentary year on Wednesday afternoon, 29 April, where seven bills will be considered.
The bills that will be brought before the House are the Parliament (Management) (Amendment) Bill; Proceeds of Crime (Amendment) Bill; Health Practice (Amendment) Bill; Auditors Oversight (Amendment, Validation and Repeal) Bill; Airports Authority (Amendment) Bill; Airports Authority (Amendment and Validation) Bill; as well as the Development and Planning (Amendment) Bill, which was filed by an Opposition member Chris Saunders.
Increases in constituency allowances
The Parliament (Management) (Amendment) Bill provides for the establishment of an office for the leader of the opposition, as well as an operations and communications manager and a senior policy adviser to support that office. It also would provide for constituency office managers to support opposition MPs in their relevant electoral districts.
The bill proposes to increase constituency allowances for each MP from $5,000 a month to $6,500 per month.
Pay for the deputy speaker and the deputy leader of the opposition would also increase under the bill. Currently, both roles receives an allowance of 2.5% of their monthly salary for their additional duties. The bill increases that to 10%.
Proceeds of Crime Bill
The Proceeds of Crime Bill expands the membership of the Anti-Money Laundering Steering Group to include the minister for financial services or a designate to chair the group and to include the chief officer of the ministry responsible for Customs and Border Control, or a designate as a member. The group is currently chaired by Attorney General Samuel Bulgin.
The bill also calls for agencies that investigates or prosecutes money laundering or terrorist financing cases to submit annual performance reports to the steering committee.
It would also provide immunity for members of the steering group and the Inter-Agency Coordination Committee, which the steering group would appoint, meaning they would not be liable for damages “for anything done or omitted in the discharge of their respective functions or duties under the legislation unless it is shown that the act or omission was in bad faith or constituted wilful misconduct or negligence”.
Health Practice Bill
The Health Practice (Amendment) Bill amends the Health Practice Act to empower Cabinet to prescribe standards for professional practice that apply to every registered practitioner.
Those standards include professional responsibilities and clinical practice; licensing, performance and scope of practice; clinical practice; consent and capacity to consent; prescribing and handling medicine; clinical trials and research; patient-related standards; and safety; trust, honesty and integrity, as well as “and any other matter related to standards of professional practice that apply to registered practitioners as the Cabinet considers necessary”.
Development and Planning Bill
The Development and Planning (Amendment) Bill calls for a legislative distinction to be made between the application of planning policy by Grand Cayman’s Central Planning Authority and the Sister Islands’ Development Control Board, in the absence of a development plan for Cayman Brac and Little Cayman.
Auditors Oversight Bill
The Auditors Oversight (Amendment, Validation and Repeal) Bill seeks to amend the Auditors Oversight Act to bring it into compliance with the Public Authorities Act. This would include empowering Cabinet to appoint members of the board of directors; remove the auditor general and the financial secretary from the board; appoint three retired public accountants and one non-civil servant as directors; and appoint the chief officer in the ministry responsible for financial services, or a designate, as a director.
It would also allow for the Auditors Oversight Authority to be wound up in the near future.
Other bills
The Airports Authority Amendment Bill would empower approved officers of the Cayman Islands Airports Authority to conduct visual inspections of vehicles in designated airport operational zones, as well as to control vehicular access those areas.
The Airports Authority (Amendment and Validation) Bill seeks to amend the Airports Authority Act to allow for air navigation service fees to be collected from aircraft operators by the Cayman Islands Airports Authority.
The Public Transport Bill seeks to provide for duplicate permits to drive a public bus or taxi, in the event of a permit getting lost, destroyed, stolen or rendered illegible. It also provides for various fees.
A press release issued by Parliament noted that, as well as these bills, reports by various ministries, portfolios, offices and government-owned entities are also expected to be tabled. There will also be a number of private members’ motions and parliamentary questions.
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Our MPs are already paid far more than their UK counterparts who have far larger numbers of constituents (in some cases several hundred thousand as opposed to several hundreds). Now we are giving them a “constituency allowance” of $78,000p.a.(a 30 per cent increase!). There is no accounting for how these funda are spent and I believe that independent office managers are not always employed. In addition, the deputy leader of the opposition and the Deputy Speaker will receive a 400% increase! How often does the Deputy Speaker actually assume the office?
There seems to be no system in place for regulating these handouts. The public should be informed of what these individuals will be earning in total including allowances, it comes out of their pockets. Contrast this treatment with that handed some of our poorest being hit with increases for their driving licences.