Topic: ritch report

An immigration consultancy report, penned at a cost of $312,000 and kept from public view, put the government Ministry of Home Affairs over budget during the year it was commissioned, according to an evaluation done by Cayman’s auditor general.

Elections are about choices. Choices are about contrast. And in this election – where candidates’ views tend to overlap on the vast majority of issues, here is a topic where, between two candidates, there could not be a greater contrast.

If re-elected, Premier Alden McLaughlin said, his Progressives government in its first year will make more “significant” changes again to the system that awards permanent residence to non-Caymanians.

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.

The Ritch Report – the $312,000 consultant’s report on Cayman’s immigration system – was always a serious subject. But in the overall context of Cayman’s issues with 900-plus languishing permanent residence applications, potential human rights violations and looming legal ramifications, the governmental report on the topic was, relatively speaking, a sideshow to the main event

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 will appeal a January ruling by the chief justice which essentially ordered that a lengthy, $312,000 consultant’s report evaluating permanent residence issues be withheld from public view.

As we have stated previously, we believe that the permanent residence issue is a human rights issue and a good governance issue with embarrassing international implications, not to mention considerable financial exposure, for these islands.

Efforts to produce a public copy of a $312,000 immigration consultancy report were halted this week by a decision from Cayman Chief Justice Anthony Smellie. The consultancy review examined various aspects of the Cayman Islands system of granting residency rights to non-Caymanians.

The Ritch Report — Today's editorial cartoon

Good Light — Today's editorial cartoon

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.

Premier Alden McLaughlin and his Progressives government spent $312,000 of taxpayers’ money to commission a report on a subject — the Cayman Islands’ permanent residence system — that affects every person living in, or thinking about moving to, this country. And he does not want you to read a word of it.

On today’s front page, in headline type so large that a legally blind patient taking an eye exam could read it, we share some extremely disconcerting news. It has to do with the risks the country is facing because of its inaction on more than 800 dormant permanent residence (PR) applications.

Cayman Islands Cabinet Secretary Samuel Rose has been ordered to turn over an immigration consultant’s report to the information commissioner’s office, after the government initially denied the information commissioner access to the report. The consultant’s report is the subject of an open records request filed by the Cayman Compass.

Although it is unlikely Premier McLaughlin intended for us to take it as a compliment, being labeled “relentless” is among the highest praise a newspaper could ever hope to receive. We’ve already got the T-shirts in production.