Topic: Freedom of Information

The number of Freedom of Information requests has dropped to the lowest point since the FOI Law took effect in Cayman on 5 Jan. 2009.

Details of the pay-out to the former head of a dysfunctional government department can remain secret, the Cayman Islands ombudsman has ruled.

In October, levels of faecal bacteria in the waters surrounding the east end of Grand Cayman were found to be nearly 50 times greater than accepted safety standards.

OfReg, despite its unclear pronunciation and cryptic branding (it’s pronounced “OFFReg” and is derived from the semantic marriage of “Office” and “Regulation”), is nonetheless becoming a household word – and not a good one.

Cayman Islands Acting Governor Franz Manderson has deferred any public release of the contents of staff complaints made against withdrawn Governor Anwar Choudhury, stating all such records belong to the United Kingdom government.

Despite a suggestion by the Office of the Ombudsman, the Ministry of Finance appears to have no intention of issuing an apology to a freedom of information applicant who complained about the ministry’s handling of the request.

More than 200 applicants for permanent residence who were denied that immigration status since 2017 have filed challenges to those decisions, according to records obtained by a Cayman Compass Freedom of Information request.

Prominent members of the Cayman Islands criminal justice community, including the police commissioner and director of public prosecutions, have acknowledged concerns about the use of “police bail” after it emerged that nearly 100 criminal suspects had restrictions placed on their freedom – many for more than a year – without facing any official charge or form of court oversight.

Government service is different from private sector employment. It is not work done for profit, product or pure self-interest. It is work undertaken on the people’s behalf, using the people’s money, to preserve society’s common interests.

Ms. Hermiston can expect to face some resistance from entrenched interests, politicians, regulators and civil servants who may be perfectly content with “business as usual.”

Acting Information Commissioner Jan Liebaers said he was not consulted about Governor Helen Kilpatrick’s decision to quash the release of a $312,000 taxpayer-funded consultant’s report.

Cayman Islands Governor Helen Kilpatrick has ruled it “would not be in the public interest” for the territory’s information commissioner to see a copy of the immigration consultant’s report that taxpayers spent $312,000 to obtain last year. The decision by Governor Kilpatrick “shall not be subject to challenge in judicial or quasi-judicial proceedings of any kind,” according to the relevant section of the Freedom of Information Law.

The Cayman Islands Information Commissioner’s Office can now be added to the list of those taking legal action against government over various issues related to the granting of permanent resident status.

Government is owed more than $4 million in unpaid permanent residency fees, some dating back seven years, according to data from a citizens’ freedom of information request.

Although the tracking of open records requests made to the Cayman Islands government has improved in the last two years, there are still a number of high-profile authorities that are not able to keep track of those requests as required by law.

The number of requests made under the Freedom of Information Law, giving the public access to government records, is at the lowest level since the law came into effect in 2009, according to a new report from the Information Commissioner’s Office.

It is all too easy to forget that government works for the people, and that information held by public authorities should be open and accessible, either proactively or upon request.

When teachers are unhappy, we all should be unhappy – and from the tenor of the remarks in yesterday’s Compass, many teachers are very unhappy, indeed.

Perhaps Premier Alden McLaughlin is willing to play the role of the “dummy” — but we, and we presume the Caymanian people, are not.

The U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office released annual reports sent by Cayman Islands governors to Britain between 1987 and 2005.

The Cayman Islands Information Commissioner’s Office said Friday that it will make a formal report to the deputy governor’s office alleging that government officials verged on a “complete denial” of a Freedom of Information applicant’s rights under the law and constitution after it took nearly two years for an FOI request for records related to the local pensions investment laws to be resolved.

The Cayman Islands Information Commissioner has rejected an attempt by the government to charge an individual $108 per hour so a civil service department could recover public records the person sought via a Freedom of Information request.

Representatives of the Finance Ministry have declined to release a Jan. 1, 2014 financial evaluation of the Public Service Pensions system twice in the last six months, citing a pending review of the documentation by Cabinet ministers to occur at a date in the future.

More than four years after the initial open records request was filed for the documents, Cayman Islands Governor Helen Kilpatrick’s office has released two controversial reports, sought by a retired U.K. journalist, related to the ill-fated Operation Tempura corruption investigation.