Sir Michael Jay, the top civil servant of the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office will visit the Cayman Islands 8-9 February, it was announced yesterday.
Mr. Jay will take part in a programme organised by the Governor’s Office in which he will conduct official talks on a full range of issues relating to the Cayman Islands, including security, disaster preparedness and constitutional modernisation.
Among the Cayman officials with whom Mr. Jay will meet are Leader of Government Business Kurt Tibbetts and other Cabinet members; Leader of the Opposition McKeeva Bush; Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Edna Moyle; Members of the Legislative Assembly, Chief Justice Anthony Smellie; Commissioner of Police Stuart Kernohan; and business leaders and representatives of civil society.
On the first night of his arrival, Mr. Jay will have a dinner meeting with Mr. Tibbetts and Mr. Kernohan, as well as Ministers Anthony Eden and Arden McLean, Chief Secretary George McCarthy and Attorney General Sam Bulgin
The next morning Mr. Jay will have a round-table breakfast discussion with representatives of civil society covering disaster preparedness, constitutional modernisation, human rights and the environment.
Among those scheduled to attend the breakfast are Wil Pineau and Pastor Al Ebanks who represent two of the non-governmental organisations on the Working Group for constitutional modernisation; Estella Scott and Gordon Barlow from the Human Rights Committee; and Gina Ebanks-Petrie from the Department of Environment.
The breakfast session will be followed by a bus tour of Grand Cayman along with Mr. Tibbetts and Mark Laskin of the Cayman Islands National Recovery Fund, to get an idea of the continuing impact of Hurricane Ivan on the island.
Mr. Jay then goes on to an informal meeting with Cabinet, a business-lunch meeting with representatives of the financial services and tourism sectors, and a meeting with the Leader of the Opposition.
Opposition MLA Cline Glidden, who said he had to find out about the visit only through unofficial channels, was upset that apparently he and other MLAs were not originally scheduled be given the opportunity to express their views to Mr. Jay, particularly on the issue of constitutional modernisation.
‘Our inclusion was apparently an afterthought,’ he said.
‘They were going to give more importance to the views of non-elected members of society than elected representatives at this breakfast meeting,’ he said. ‘With an issue as important as constitutional modernisation, you would have thought they would like input from all the elected members, who represent the views of their respective constituencies.
‘It apparently was only after the media starting asking questions that they made the change to include all MLA’s,’ he said.
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