MPs asking for an additional $108 million in spending

Government is requesting $108 million in supplementary spending covering a range of sectors including education, communications, financial services, social development, tourism and health.

Parliament’s Finance Committee met on Thursday, 25 Sept. to discuss the requests sought under Section 12 of the Public Management and Finance Act. Under the law, Cabinet may authorise supplementary appropriations but they have to be approved by the Finance Committee before being included in a bill which will then go through Parliament.

Financial update

Before introducing the requests for funds, committee chair and Finance Minister Rolston Anglin gave the meeting an update on the current state of government finances taking into account the impact of the requested funds.

He told assembled MPs that core government operating revenues for 2025 are forecast to be $1.2 billion, $49 million more than the $1.1 billion originally budgeted.

Core government’s operating expenses are forecast to be $1.2 billion, $92 million more than the $1.1 billion originally budgeted, but in spite of that, core government’s operating surplus for 2025 is forecast to be $10.3 million, $42.9 million less than the $53.2 million originally budgeted.

Core government is forecast to borrow $150 million in 2025 and core government is expected to comply with all six of the principles of responsible financial management, with cash reserves for 93.7 days, he added. This will ease fears that government will break its fiscal rules and be subject to greater oversight from the UK.

The committee passed separate amounts of $253,200 and $200,000 in supplementary funding for staffing costs and the modernisation of Radio Cayman, which Premier André Ebanks described as “woefully inadequate in regards to modern communication”, adding that the reception area, studio and communications infrastructure needed updating and refurbishing.

Education expenses of an additional $2,500,000 for primary education services, $7,200,000 for secondary education and $120,000 for students with special educational needs were all approved unanimously, as was $2,500,000 for school infrastructure including transport, janitorial and security required to support the rising number of students.

Education spending

An amount of $5,850,000 was approved for additional funding for student scholarships and $1,522,620 for additional funding to strengthen alternative education services for vulnerable children and those with special educational needs and disabilities, bringing the education total to $19.3 million.

Moving onto finance, $751,500 was passed to cover the costs associated with work needed to take place ahead of the 5th round of mutual evaluation under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standard, part of $4.1 million being asked for in total in financial services and regulation.

Part of the morning’s debate centred around the issue of the non-Caymanian children of civil servants, teachers and non-Caymanians who married Caymanians, attending government schools.

Anglin, who is Education Minister as well as Finance Minister, said that his department was “bombarded” with requests for children to attend public schools and the issue was a complex one and future numbers were hard to forecast in certain cases, such as, for example, when non-Caymanian children became Caymanian by adoption.

[Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect that the total of supplementary funding requested is $108 million, not $107 million as initially reported, due to a vote in committee approving an additional $1,075,000 in funding special educational needs scholarships]