The newly passed Standards in Public Life Law, which is not yet in effect, requires figures in public life and individuals “connected” to them to disclose land holdings, whether or not the land benefits them.
According to section 12 of the law: “In making a declaration required [under the law], a person in public life shall include, in relation to himself and any connected person, details relating to – [subsection 1e] any land, whether beneficial or otherwise.”
The legislation forms part of a wholesale redraft of Cayman’s public standards policies, broadly expanding the areas local politicians and higher-ranking civil servants must make public in the territory’s register of interests.
It has also presented an issue for Premier Alden McLaughlin and Works Minister Kurt Tibbetts, who confirmed to the Caymanian Compass last week that close family members own land in the area of the Mastic Reserve on Grand Cayman. Those areas are along the path of a planned road that is slated to service the proposed Ironwood golf and resort development in the center of the island.
Earlier this month, government leaders signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ironwood development company to negotiate an agreement to fund the construction of a road that will extend the East-West Arterial road from its terminus in Newlands to the development just east of the Mastic Reserve. Precise details of the funding arrangement have not been agreed and would likely have to be approved by the United Kingdom government.
Opposition Leader McKeeva Bush on Monday requested that Mr. McLaughlin make public the memorandum signed by government and the Ironwood developer, along with any plans for what Mr. Bush called a “$40 million concession deal” for the road construction. He also demanded to know why two eastern district MLAs, Ezzard Miller and Arden McLean, had not been involved in the project process and why he, as opposition leader, had not been informed about it.
If the premier does not make such matters public, Mr. Bush said he would ask Governor Helen Kilpatrick to look into it by way of a formal enquiry.
“How can the premier and his party, who campaigned on a platform claiming openness, transparency and accountability as the backbone of good governance, treat this $40 million issue in such a nonchalant and duplicitous manner?” Mr. Bush said in a prepared statement. “But that’s the way they operate, always pointing the finger at someone else.
“Why haven’t they come to the public, shared the [memorandum] with the Caymanian people and tell us all what obtains in this matter? Are there others with potential conflicts?”
Premier McLaughlin said Monday that it was his government’s intention to release the signed memorandum, which is non-binding, sometime this week.
Mr. McLaughlin has previously said that the planned road to the Ironwood development site was “gazetted” – or made public – by Mr. Bush’s previous government administration in 2005 and that Mr. Bush had discussions with the developer during his last administration between 2009 and 2012.
“[The road was] gazetted nine years ago,” Mr. McLaughlin said Thursday, adding that the gazetting occurred in 2005 before the People’s Progressive Movement government took office in May of that year. “For anyone to suggest I had anything to do with that [gazetting] is just ridiculous.”
According to Lands and Survey maps, a 17-acre parcel off Frank Sound Road on the southeastern edge of the Mastic Reserve, abutting the proposed route of the planned road extension to the north, is registered to Alden McNee McLaughlin, the premier’s 87-year-old father. The land would be opposite the new Ironwood golf resort, if and when it is built.
A 10.94-acre parcel to the southwest of the reserve is owned by Mr. Tibbetts’s wife Shirley Ann Tibbetts and her sister Carla Sue Watler-McLaughlin. A third owner of the property was listed as Marjorie Jesmina Stewart. That parcel is farther from the Ironwood development site at the junction of two planned roads – one of which would veer south toward the Health City Cayman Islands complex.
Mr. McLaughlin said he first became aware of the road taking away a portion of his father’s 17-acre property when a friend who is involved in the Ironwood project told him that the land grab would “significantly devalue” the land.
“It has 1,100 feet of frontage on Frank Sound Road; it doesn’t need road access,” the premier said of his father’s land. “[The road plan] doesn’t run up against the boundary [to the south] … to minimize the land loss to the parcel. What we’re talking about in terms of land loss now is 220 feet. How that is supposed to enhance the value of that parcel … is beyond me.”
Opposition Leader Bush said he had been inundated with calls about the land holdings issue since the story about it appeared in the Caymanian Compass on Friday. He said people were urging him to make a statement about the matter, and he said he did so Monday, knowing full well the effects such public discussions can have a politician’s family.
“My family has suffered greatly over the course of my political career,” Mr. Bush said. “But I do recognize that, had it been me [Monday] morning or on Friday, by now, there would have been calls for my resignation or an investigation, because that has been [the Progressives party] modus operandi.
“The huge issue in this matter is [the premier’s] usual manner of believing he and the People’s Progressive Movement and making the Caymanian people believe they [referring to the political party] are untouchable,” Mr. Bush said. “Their mantra is, they can do it, nothing is said. Somebody else can do it and they will be pounced upon.”
Mr. McLaughlin did not respond to the latter comments from Mr. Bush by press time Monday.
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