Cayman Compass - 27 May, 2022

cayman compass Your most trusted news source Established 1965 Stingrays pitch in with football club on plastics battle Page 5 SOCCER SHOOT Photo: James Gibb In Focus: A Walk In Their Shoes Page 12 In his own words: Swimmer Oly Rush Page 29 $1 | Funding local journalism | Weekly, 27 May - 2 June 2022 TM & © 2022 Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Inc. FIND US ONLINE Caymancompass.com Facebook.com/Caycompass cayman_compass@cayCompassCayman Compass PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY: Cayman Compass Ltd. Compass Centre, Shedden Road, George Town, Cayman Islands SEND US YOUR VIEWS OR NEWS: P.O. Box 1365 Grand Cayman, KY1-1108 Cayman Islands Telephone: (345) 815-0095 Email: newsdesk@compassmedia.ky ADVERTISE WITH US: T: (345) 949-5111 E: sales@compassmedia.ky W: caymancompass.com NEWS EDITOR CAROLINE JAMES BUSINESS EDITOR MICHAEL KLEIN ISSUES EDITOR JAMES WHITTAKER LIVING EDITOR VICKI WHEATON HEAD OF SALES CHERYL BIRCHGILLIES weather Friday Forecast FORECAST Partly cloudy skies with a 20% chance of showers. SEA STATE Slight to moderate with a wave height of 2 to 4 feet. WINDS East to southeast at 10 to 15 knots. 87°F HIGH 78°F LOW Matinees (matinee price before 6pm) • Seniors $9.00 (Mon-Fri before 6pm) Additional charges apply per 3D/VIP tickets 640-FILM (640-3456) Cayman Cinema@cbcinema6cbcinema6 SATURDAY NIGHT: For your viewing pleasure, minors under the age of 18 will not be admitted to any lm starting after 6pm, unless accompanied by their parent. DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS (PG-13) (FRI) 3:45 | 7:10 | 10:20 VIP (SAT) 1:35 | 4:30 VIP | 4:30 | 7:25 | 10:20 | 10:30 VIP (SUN) 4:30 | 7:25 | 7:35 VIP | 10:20 | 10:30 VIP (MON & WED) 3:30 VIP | 4:30 | 7:25 | 10:20 | 10:30 VIP (TUES) 3:30 VIP | 4:30 | 7:25 | 9:45 VIP | 10:20 (THURS) 3:30 VIP | 4:30 | 7:25 | 7:30 VIP | 10:20 | 10:30 VIP DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA (PG) (FRI) 3:55 | 7:20 | 10:15 (SAT) 12:45 VIP | 12:45 | 3:35 | 3:40 VIP | 6:45 | 9:40 | 10:15 VIP (SUN) 3:45 | 4:25 VIP | 6:45 | 7:20 VIP | 9:40 | 10:15 VIP (MON) 3:55 | 6:45 | 7:20 VIP | 9:40 | 10:15 VIP (TUES & WED) 3:55 | 4:25 VIP | 6:45 | 7:20VIP | 9:40 | 10:15 VIP (THURS) 3:55 | 4:20 VIP | 6:45 | 7:20 VIP | 9:40 | 10:15 VIP SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2 (PG) (FRI) 4:25 (SAT) 12:55 6:30 (MON - THURS) 6:30 WHAT’S PLAYING THIS WEEK THE LOST CITY (PG-13) (FRI) 10:10 (SAT) 3:50 | 9:20 (SUN) 3:50 | 9:20 (MON - THURS) 3:50 | 9:20 TOP GUN MAVERICK (PG-13) (FRI) 3:30 | 6:45 | 7:20 VIP | 9:50| 10:00 VIP (SAT) 12:40 VIP | 1:15 | 3:50 VIP | 4:15 | 7:15 | 7:30 VIP | 10:05 VIP | 10:15 (SUN) 4:00 VIP | 4:15 | 7:00 VIP | 7:15 | 10:05 VIP | 10:15 (MON) 3:30 | 4:20 VIP | 7:00 VIP | 7:10 | 10:00 VIP | 10:15 (TUES) 3:30 | 4:00 VIP | 6:45VIP | 7:10 | 10:10 | 10:20 VIP (WED) 3:30 | 3:45 VIP | 7:10 | 7:30 VIP | 10:05 VIP | 10:10 (THURS) 3:30 | 4:00 VIP | 7:00 VIP | 7:10 | 10:05 VIP | 10:10 KIDS CLUB THE LEGO MOVIE SATURDAY 10AM VIP AVAILABLE (PG) KIDS CLUB THE GREATEST SHOWMAN (PG) SATURDAY 10AM VIP AVAILABLE (PG) THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION TUESDAY 7PM VIP (R) CLASSICS Fatal collision on West Bay Road A 41-year-old man was killed after the Honda Civic he was driving was involved in a collision with a Hyundai Santa Fe on West Bay Road early on Thursday morning, 26 May. Police arrested the driver of the Hyundai on suspicion of DUI. The crash happened shortly after 4am in front of the Ritz- Carlton residences. There were no other occupants in the cars. Fire ofﬁ cers freed the Honda driver from his vehicle and he was transported to the Cayman Islands Hospital where he was pronounced dead. The Hyundai driver suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the collision, police said. He was arrested after being treated and released from hospital, and was later bailed. Ofﬁ cial funeral for former vestryman A.J. Miller Former vestryman Arley James ‘A.J.’ Miller lay in state at the House of Parliament on Thursday, 26 May, as part of a two-day ofﬁ cial funeral. Speaker of the House McKeeva Bush, on the steps of the House of Parliament as the casket arrived, said, “We welcome the mortal remains of Mr. Arley James Miller, Certificate and Badge of Honour, former vestryman for the district of Bodden Town, a businessman, and a politician who was no stranger to the political arena of his day.” The 92-year-old, described as a “political trailblazer” and Caymanian icon, passed away on Sunday, 8 May, at his Bodden Town home. He was Cayman’s last surviving vestrymen. His funeral service is scheduled to begin at 1pm on Friday, 27 May, at Savannah United Church, with the viewing at 12 noon. The interment will follow at Pease Bay Cemetery in Bodden Town. Cayman Islands flags flew at half-mast at government buildings on 26 and 27 May as a mark of respect for Miller. 3 arrested as ﬁ rearm seized in George Town Three George Town residents were in custody on 25 May, after police found a loaded gun during a raid at a Rock Hole Road address. Police said ofﬁ cers carried out a search operation under the Misuse of Drugs Act at the Rock Hole Road address on 24 May. During the search, ofﬁ cers discovered a loaded a revolver containing six rounds of ammunition. The three individuals were arrested on suspicion of possession of an unlicensed ﬁ rearm. A 54-year-old man and two women, ages 38 and 34, all of George Town, were arrested. Temporary plates to expire at end of May Anyone still driving with temporary licence plates by next Tuesday, 31 May, will be on the road illegally, the Department of Vehicle and Drivers’ Licensing is warning. The DVDL is urging vehicle owners with temporary licence plates to replace them with permanent plates by the end of the month, as these temporary plates will cease to be legal by then. Failure to replace the plates is a criminal offence, carrying a ﬁ ne of $2,500 or up to six months’ imprisonment, or both, the DVDL noted in a press release. The temporary laminated licence plates can be switched at DVDL’s Crewe Road location on Mondays to Fridays, 8:30am to 4pm. Salmonella scare prompts Jif peanut butter recall A recall of Jif peanut butter is under way after reports of salmonella outbreaks in several states in the US. The US Food and Drug Administration, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are investigating a multi-state outbreak of bacterial infections linked to certain Jif peanut butter products produced at the J.M. Smucker Company facility in Lexington, Kentucky. J.M. Smucker Company has voluntarily recalled some of its Jif brand peanut butter products that have the lot code numbers between 1274425 – 2140425, only if the ﬁ rst seven digits end with 425. The numbers ‘425’ indicate that the product was manufactured at the Lexington, Kentucky facility. Local stores in the Cayman Islands confirmed that they have removed any affected peanut butter products from their shelves. A man was killed following an early morning collision on West Bay Road on 26 May. - Photo: Taneos Ramsay news in brief RCIPS pallbearers carry the casket of former vestryman Arley James ‘A.J.’ Miller into the House of Parliament on 26 May, as part of a two-day ofﬁ cial funeral. - Photo: CIGTV cayman compass 2 N news FRIDAY, 27 MAY 2022NORMA CONNOLLY nconnolly@compassmedia.ky A team of risk assessors from the UK is drawing up a list of the biggest threats the Cayman Islands face from rising temperatures and sea levels, which Premier Wayne Panton says will help the government create a climate change policy by the end of the year. John Pinnegar and Bryony Townhill of the UK’s Centre of Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) and Alice Fitch of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) are in Cayman this week to meet with local experts and the public to get their input on the risks the islands face from climate change. Before they arrived on 22 May, the team already had a list of 52 issues relating to climate change, garnered from a draft climate change policy the Cayman Islands government drew up in 2011 but never enacted, as well as from other reports, media articles and scientific papers. On the team’s first full day on island on 24 May, they told the Cayman Compass they had added one more item to that list - a “positive” one, Pinnegar said. “In the long term, as it gets drier, you may get less mosquitos,” he explained. Starting with a ‘long list’ But they acknowledge that this list is far from final and will change, based on feedback from technical workshops with NGOs, government officials and representatives of various industries on 25 and 26 May. Those participants are helping to determine the urgency and seriousness of the threats on the list. “The list of risks is going to change quite a lot in the next two days. Some of the items will merge, some will split, some of them will be reworked,” Pinnegar said on 24 May. CEFAS and CEH have previously worked on a similar risk assessment projects on countries surrounding the Arabian Gulf, one of the hottest places on Earth. They have also carried out three climate change risk assessments in the UK, which has legislation requiring that such assessments be done every five years. Pinnegar explained that the assessment being carried out in Cayman is modelled on the first UK assessment they carried out, “so we’re following the same procedures that we did in the UK.” “This is why we start with a very long list of risks because even the things we don’t know very much about... can be quite threatening in terms of climate change,” he said. By the evening of 25 May, when the team led a public meeting at Constitution Hall in George Town, after the first workshop - dealing with the impacts on species and biodiversity - the list had already been amended based on feedback earlier in the day. A second workshop on impacts to the economy and society was scheduled to be held on 26 May. At the townhall meeting, the team said it was likely the original list of 52 risks and opportunities would probably be whittled down to a ‘top 10’ list, based on the most serious and immediate threats facing the islands. Townhill and Fitch outlined to the audience of about 75 people at the meeting, as well as those listening over the radio where it was broadcast live, some of the threats from the current list, which included beach erosion, over-development, flooding, coral reef bleaching and diseases, invasive species, decline in fish and turtle populations, loss of mangroves, challenges to agriculture and food security, and health issues relating to rising temperatures. Scoring the threats Pinnegar told the Compass on 24 May, “Over the next two days, we’re going to ask the shareholder participants at the workshops to score each of the risks in terms of what we’re calling proximity - or urgency - and then magnitude - or seriousness.” Those scores will then determine how the various risks are ranked in the final list and report, he explained. “So, the things that will come out at the top are things that are happening already that are really quite urgent, that are going to affect a lot of people, a big area or cause a lot of damage which costs a lot of money,” he said. The risks that top the list are typically the ones that the countries that are subject to the assessment exercise want to address first, Townhill explained, adding “That’s when you actually look at the adaptation options which might be possible to address those risks.” The team stressed that their final report is not a document that is meant to lie on a shelf somewhere gathering dust. “They’re designed to be followed through, right through to the adaptations,” Fitch said. This was echoed by Panton, who addressed the meeting on 25 May, saying the final report from the assessment team, which is expected in September, will quickly be used to inform the government’s policy. He insisted that this policy, unlike the one drawn up in 2011, would not sit gathering dust on a shelf, but would be quickly enacted. He said he planned to have the new climate policy in place by the end of this year. In a question and answer session at the meeting, one of the attendees, Loxley Banks, asked if the team was also getting input from Cayman’s older generation, who could inform them of the types of changes they’d seen on the islands throughout their lives and who had oral histories from their own parents and grandparents. Jennifer Ahearn, chief officer in the Ministry of Sustainability and Climate Resiliency, responded that the meetings this week were effectively a starting point for feedback from the public and there would be ample opportunity for the public to give its input at future district meetings and through an online survey. The survey can be found at https://www. surveymonkey.com/r/caymanclimaterisk. Premier: Climate change policy could be in place by end of year From left, following an interview Tuesday with the Compass, are Chief Officer in the Ministry of Sustainability and Climate Resiliency Jennifer Ahearn, John Pinnegar and Bryony Townhill of Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Alice Fitch of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, and Director of the Department of Environment Gina Ebanks-Petrie. - Photo: Norma Connolly The roots of palm trees on Seven Mile Beach are exposed due to beach erosion, which has been highlighted as one of the risks of climate change facing the Cayman Islands. - Photo: Taneos Ramsay “The things that will come out at the top [of the threat list] are things that are happening already that are really quite urgent, that are going to affect a lot of people, a big area or cause a lot of damage which costs a lot of money.” John Pinnegar, UK’s Centre of Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science cayman compass news N news FRIDAY, 27 MAY 2022 3pic of the week Sports journalist Seaford Russell Jr. interviews Oly Rush, who featured on the cover of last week’s edition of the Compass. The history-making swimmer completed a swim around the entire coast of Grand Cayman on 17 May in 37 hours. See page 29 for more. Behind the scenes with a record-maker 1234567 89 101112 13141516 17 181920 212223 2425 1234567 89 101112 13141516 17 181920 212223 2425 ACROSS 1 Exclude from admission (5) 4 An addition to a will (7) 8 Resort with mineral springs (3) 9 To create an impression (3,6) 10 Put at risk (7) 11 To convert (5) 13 West African country (6) 15 Principal component (6) 18 Hemmed in (5) 19 Bring to light (7) 21 Person easily imposed on (4,5) 23 Unhealthily pale (3) 24 General notion (7) 25 A durable worsted fabric (5) DOWN 1 Spirited (7) 2 Take great trouble (2,2,5) 3 Allude (5) 4 Group with common interest (6) 5 Openly disobedient (7) 6 A signal for action (3) 7 Subsequent (5) 12 Highest level of society (3,6) 14 Give a just claim (7) 16 Improve in value (7) 17 Commotion (6) 18 Radical (5) 20 Characteristic spirit (5) 22 Amusement (3) The Compass Crossword Puzzle The Compass universal kakuro Puzzle 17015 The numbers in the black cells are clues. Numbers above the slash are across clues. Number below the slash are down clues. The goal is to enter digits 1 - 9 in the white cells to add up to the number clues. You cannot enter any digit more than once when adding up to clue. TODAY'S SOLUTIONS Puzzle 17015 ACROSS: 1 Debar, 4 Codicil, 8 Spa, 9 For effect, 10 Imperil, 11 Alter, 13 Guinea, 15 Staple, 18 Beset, 19 Unearth, 21 Soft touch, 23 Wan, 24 Concept, 25 Serge. DOWN: 1 Dashing, 2 Be at pains, 3 Refer, 4 Circle, 5 Defiant, 6 Cue, 7 Later, 12 Top drawer, 14 Entitle, 16 Enhance, 17 Tumult, 18 Basic, 20 Ethos, 22 Fun. What’s happening with the single-use plastics ban? If the government starts a programme like here in the USA that purchases plastic and bottles for recycling, the beach and island will stay clean automatically. – Alphando Bushea The north side in Little Cayman is probably the worst you will see it. – Lewis Wilson It’s a slow and straight pitch for the government, just swing! Bipartisan friendly, necessary for the environment, and vastly publicly popular. Phase out single-use containers of plastic bags/containers and (a certain someone’s) Styrofoam. It already has been done in other jurisdictions that left it far too late in choking their environs with the stuff. Let’s not wait for that to happen here, it is so frustrating to see this stuff floating onto and crumbling into our beaches and into our reefs. We don’t need to be contributing to the mess as well, nor do we need to be throwing more of it onto our hurricane-vulnerable landfill. A massive pat on the back for CIG waiting to happen. Just needs to be done. – Rory Joe McDonough They need to ban [in] the other bigger countries first. It’s drift plastic. – Jeremy Bodden I see this every day on my walks along the shore, it makes me sad to see it. – Blaine McDonald Arriving Cubans’ plea: ‘Don’t send us back’ Imagine the horrors they went through boating here from Cuba. They must have been so scared. This shows how bad the situation is in Cuba. As long as they will be productive members of the society, they should get to stay. No freebies though. They need to get a job and work hard. – Jason Gautreau Can’t help but want to give them a chance… – Sara Harbison Mackay If we can house everybody else, why can’t we house them? – Aquinnah Ebanks Public invited to climate change meeting All beach-front developers should be placed in the front row! They need this more than the public. – Lincoln Bodden Can we have a meeting over these ridiculous wages... or the lack of affordable housing? – William Levy They already know how the public feels, especially about the excessive building. They will sit there like a bunch of concerned public representatives and they just go back and whatever they please after the media show. – Regina Ecclefield Will face masks be required? It would be a good opportunity to be turned away by the government directly. – Desle Francis Looking back in time: Owen Roberts International Airport (1984-2017) That should never have changed. One of many things we loved gone forever. – Shirley Roulstone I remember the undersea tile mural in the check in area. I was in primary school then (Savannah Primary) and our class was given a piece of the clay to mold so it could be placed on the wall. We had to put our names on it after. I believe all primary schools then played a part in completing that…. – Wayne Gooding This is what touches my heart. I have lost count of the number of times I stood at that edge and cried out to family and friends as they arrived. – Debbie Parry I miss being able to watch the planes (& family & friends) arriving! – Lauren Nelson Cayman is gradually losing its “uniqueness”. It’s a tropical, holiday island, for goodness sake. People want to see the lovely quaint things. The waving gallery was this, and like everything else on this precious island, it is being eroded – Marion Webb I loved seeing my husband, family and friends come off the plane. I would shed a tear as they left. Also miss the Hungry Horse restaurant! I wish some things didn’t change. – Sharon Glatz Always a wonderful greeting and meeting place welcoming Cayman hospitality. Now we are faced with the glistening dome of 21st century ingenuity, security whisking us off the tarmac, swooshing our international guests out the door and into ‘pick up’ traffic. Caymankind... please, let’s not lose it! –Robert Harrold It was such fun to stand here and wave to passengers arriving – or be a passenger arriving and wave to those saying welcome! – Mary Lou Erikson What they’re saying Online cayman compass 4 news N news FRIDAY, 27 MAY 2022NORMA CONNOLLY nconnolly@compassmedia.ky Stingrays don’t normally indulge in a game of soccer but for the purposes of a new ad campaign by Inter Miami football club and Adidas to highlight the threat of plastic to our oceans, it seems they obliged. Or at least that’s what – after hours of work and 8,000 underwater shots – Cayman-based photographer Jason Washington’s images of model Coral Tomascik and the rays near Stingray City sandbar in the North Sound appear to show. As she freedives with the southern stingrays, Tomascik is dressed in Inter Miami’s newest jersey, supplied by Adidas, from the Primeblue collection, which is made from recycled plastics reclaimed from the ocean. This is the second consecutive year that Washington and Tomascik have worked with Inter Miami on the campaign to raise awareness of ocean plastic debris. Last year, images of Tomascik with a soccer ball at the Kittiwake wreck off West Bay featured in the campaign. Those shots were viewed more than 90 million times in a single day, after Inter Miami president David Beckham and Major League Soccer players shared them on their social media platforms. Washington told the Cayman Compass, “We did this about the same time last year, at the Kittiwake. We were excited to be asked back. Last year, they had such a good reaction to the campaign, they asked us to do this year, and next year as well.” “It’s such a big rush to be involved in a brand that is trying to make a real difference, on a different scale,” he added. Last year, the new Inter Miami jerseys featured in the Kittiwake photos sold out in the afternoon the campaign was launched. ‘The stingray’s cooperated’ This year’s shoot was done in a single day, “but the preparations took much longer than that,” Washington said. “The difﬁ culty was, were we going to be able to create an image at the sandbar that would be visually compelling, when we’re in just four feet of water,” he said. “Was it going to be an over/underwater shot? We moved 60 feet away from the sandbar so we could get some shots in deeper water. We were in about 12 feet of water. “It was perfect. The stingrays cooperated... We wanted some shots where they would swim through the scene and hang out in a natural way.” Washington said he took about 8,000 shots. “They say never work with animals or children, but it worked out pretty well with the rays,” he said. The story behind the photo Washington said there was the inevitable questions on social media last year on whether the photographs at the Kittiwake were real or fake, with people not believing that the model could get or stay underwater without ﬁ ns, or saying the football was photoshopped into the shot because a ball would ﬂ oat to the surface. The photographer said this year, he made a video to show what was happening behind the scenes. Noting that Tomascik is a talented freediver who can remain underwater easily for the duration of the shots, Washington also shared the non-Photoshop technique of how to photograph a football underwater. “I weighted it down by ﬁ lling it with lead and water,” he revealed. A video, ﬁ lmed by James Gibb, shows the tale behind the photo shoot. “I wanted to tell the story of how we got the image,” Washington said. Raising awareness In a press release announcing the launch of the this year’s campaign, Inter Miami’s senior vice president of marketing and branding Mike Ridley said, “Everyone at the club was excited to work with Jason, Coral, adidas and MLS again on such an important initiative as reducing plastic in the ocean. “This year we really wanted to ﬁ nd a way to highlight that when the oceans are clear of plastic, marine life will repopulate and ultimately ﬂ ourish, which is critical to a healthy ecosystem.” As well as raising awareness of ocean plastics via the digital campaign, the team’scentre- back Damion Lowe, along with representatives from each of the club’s supporters groups and front-ofﬁ ce staff, recently took part in a beach clean-up with Off the Hook Florida, a South Florida organisation dedicated to spreading awareness and taking action to prevent ocean plastic pollution. In one afternoon, the group picked up 60 pounds of trash. The Primeblue jerseys, which are part of a league-wide initiative with Major League Soccer and Adidas to raise awareness about plastic pollution, will be worn by all MLS clubs this weekend, with Inter Miami donning the kit on Saturday, 28 May, when they host the Portland Timbers at DRV PNK Stadium in Fort Lauderdale. Jason Washington snaps images of Coral Tomascik near the Stingray City sandbar for the Inter Miami campaign. - Photo: James Gibb This photo of Coral Tomascik with stingrays is the main image in Inter Miami's latest ad campaign to highlight plastic pollution in the sea. - Photo: Jason Washington “They say never work with animals or children, but it worked out pretty well with the rays.” Jason Washington, photographer Stingrays in plastic pollution ad campaign Inter Miami centre-back Damion Lowe and supporters take part in a beach clean-up in Florida. - Photo: Courtesy of Inter Miami cayman compass 5 news N news FRIDAY, 27 MAY 2022FRIDAY, 27 MAY 2022RESHMA RAGOONATH rragoonath@compassmedia.ky At ﬁ rst glance, the death of mother-of- ﬁ ve Eva Glee Ebanks in a crash in 1997 on Cayman Brac seemed like a tragic accident. But there was always something suspicious about the circumstances of her death. For starters, she may have been struck twice. Her family has long believed there is something more sinister behind the story. Now detectives, acting on new information, have reopened the almost-three-decades-old case. Some details of the review – codenamed Operation Lavender – cannot be fully revealed due to their sensitivity, but police are investigating the possibility that the circumstances may not be as they ﬁ rst seemed. An inquest into Ebanks’s death returned an ‘open verdict’, meaning the coroner could not decide how she died. In this month’s Compass Cold Case Files, in partnership with the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service, we lift the lid on the historical case, as a review of the evidence gets under way. New review begins Detective Constable Mike Lewis of the RCIPS Serious Crime Review team is looking into Ebanks’s case, one of the oldest up for review by the team. “My unit is speciﬁ cally set up to look at historical cases, cold cases... Sometimes, as [with] this case, we may get information that comes in which makes us look at a case again,” Lewis said. Unlike previous cases highlighted in this series, some details of this review cannot be disclosed for now. However, Lewis said he intends to get to the truth as the inquiry moves forward. Ebanks was 35 when she was killed and had ﬁ ve young children, he said. She was last seen alive at Coral Isle Bar, getting into a truck with a man. “It was the early hours of the 16th October, 1997, at South Side Road West on Cayman Brac [when there] was a serious road trafﬁ c accident... A member of the public came forward not too long ago with some information, and that information was looked at. As a result of that, a review was directed of the case and that’s where we are at the moment,” Lewis said. He said the team visited the Brac and examined the scene, although that had been impacted by Hurricane Ivan, which also destroyed some records in the case. “You can imagine, with Hurricane Ivan, there has been some problems obtaining papers, documentation, exhibits, but... we’ve got a good amount of information to go by,” he said. He appealed for members of the public to come forward, if they have relevant information. A loss like no other Ebanks’s family, Lewis said, is being kept up to date with developments in the case. For Ebanks’s daughter Deseray McLean and her sister Elsie Marie Ebanks-Sevik, the loss endures. “I keep a picture in my room of her. We just can’t forget her because she was a good sister and she loved her children,” Ebanks-Sevik said. McLean, who was 18 at the time of her mother’s death, said it has been a difﬁ cult road for the family. Her mother was a “free spirit, very friendly, kind, very compassionate. A lot of her friends always spoke highly about her being so kind and loving. She was a good mom,” McLean recalled in a recent interview with the Compass on the Brac. She said her mother had her at 16, and being a young parent was challenging. McLean recounted her last moments with her mother, after waking up on the morning of 16 Oct. 1997 to learn she had been in an accident. “I rushed to the hospital. By the time I got [there] she was already in the operating theatre. She was bleeding out. They said her injuries were really bad. She had been dragged by a vehicle and that she was left for dead. … It’s something that haunts me every night,” she sobbed. “She pretty much died in my arms because by the time I was able to get in there, she was taking her last breaths,” McLean said. “I didn’t actually get to speak to her. I just whispered to her, I love her, I love her,” she added. Cold Case detectives reopen suspicious fatal crash on Brac “She didn’t deserve this kind of death.” Elsie Marie Ebanks-Sevik, victim’s sister DC Mike Lewis of the Serious Crime Review team, with Eva Ebanks's sister, Elsie Ebanks-Sevik at the scene of the collision. - Photo: Reshma Ragoonath Eva Ebanks was killed on 16 Oct. 1997. cayman compass news N news FRIDAY, 27 MAY 2022 6McLean said her aunts were with her mother before she went in for surgery, and that it was in those moments that the dying woman revealed details about what happened to her that night. “They just said that she kept calling the person's name that did it to her,” McLean stated. This was also revealed in testimony given back in 1999 during a coroner's inquest into Ebanks's death. McLean admitted that the family had lost faith in the judicial system and police because they never got justice for her mother. “She didn’t deserve this kind of death,” Ebanks-Sevik said. Both women say they are grateful that the police are looking into Ebanks’s death, although it is “painful”. “I’m here to do anything to see justice done for my sister,” Ebanks-Sevik vowed. “It means that she hasn’t been forgotten... her kids, we were left in the dark, and now it gives me a little light of hope seeing that someone remembers my mom because she was such a beautiful person. I really have hope that maybe someone will take this case more serious and she will get some justice finally, ‘cause I worry that she’s not resting in peace because of the injustice,” McLean said. Both women pleaded for those involved in Ebanks’s death and those who saw or know what happened to come forward. “Do the right thing, allow her to have some peace, her children to have some inner peace,” McLean implored, encouraging potential witnesses, “Just say what you know, and tell the police what you know, and just be honest. Stop trying to cover up for people because they’re popular around here or they have connections, just do the right thing.” McLean acknowledged the fresh review of the case could be divisive in the Brac’s small community. “My mom was a very brave woman, as am I. It’s something that we will have to face, but I’d rather stir the pot than have it just sitting there simmering,” she said. A case unresolved A coroner’s inquest was held into Ebanks’s death in 1999 and the jury returned an open verdict, which meant that the evidence they heard was insufficient for them to determine the cause of the Brac woman’s death. A total of 18 witnesses testified in that case. The inquest determined that Ebanks died around 4am on 16 Oct. 1997 at Faith Hospital from severe loss of blood after injuries sustained in the incident. Pathologist Dr. John Obafunwa had itemised 53 injuries, internal and external, that Ebanks had sustained. Lewis said Ebanks had got out from the moving car, driven by a “boyfriend or ex-boyfriend at the time”, and was struck by another vehicle and dragged along the road. Lewis said forensic evidence indicates that she may have been struck twice on the night she died. A number of allegations, including domestic abuse, had been made in the case, and Ebanks had even sought a restraining order against the man with whom she was last seen alive. The full facts of the case, Lewis said, are still to be determined and he is “driven” to collate the evidence. Watch video online: COMPASSMEDIA.COM _____________________ Anyone with information on this case can call the Serious Crime Review team on 649-2930. Eva Glee Ebanks's daughter Deseray McLean.Sister Elsie Ebanks-Sevik Eva Ebanks died after being struck by a car on this stretch of South Side Road West. DC Mike Lewis says the case has been reopened after a member of the public came forward with fresh information. cayman compass 7 news N news FRIDAY, 27 MAY 2022NORMA CONNOLLY nconnolly@compassmedia.ky Members of the Public Accounts Committee have questioned ofﬁ cials on why government still does not have an ofﬁ cial policy in place for granting duty waivers and concessions. Auditor General Sue Winspear, in a report issued in February this year assessing the government’s progress in carrying out recommendations based on value for money, said that since 2015, her ofﬁ ce had been recommending that government develop “a formal, comprehensive concessions policy”, but so far, none has been developed. “As a result, concessions continue to be inconsistently awarded and the underlying conditions, for example, employing Caymanians, are not being monitored so it is unclear if they are being met,” she said Lack of duty waiver in a statement accompanying the report at the time. She also noted in her report that, of 20 recommendations made in relation to Customs by her ofﬁ ce and the Public Accounts Committee in 2017, only six had been implemented. Financial Secretary Kenneth Jefferson and Director of Customs and Border Control Charles Clifford appeared before the PAC on Wednesday, 25 May, to explain why so many of the recommendations were still outstanding, including the one calling for government to introduce a clear policy on duty waivers. The issue was raised in court recently, when Doctors Hospital brought a judicial review challenging the government’s continuing import- and stamp- duty concessions for Health City Cayman Islands, which were granted in 2010 and which appear set to continue for several decades. A ruling on that case has not yet been delivered. Efforts to introduce policy Jefferson told the committee that there had been efforts to implement an ofﬁ cial concessions policy under a number of successive government administrations. He noted that a draft policy had been developed to “aid the government of the day in deciding whether to grant a request for concessions on revenue, either as an outright gift of revenue being foregone, such as import duty or stamp duty, a reduction in those revenues is another possibility, or a deferral of those revenues being collected”. He said a draft policy had been presented to caucus in November 2016 – six months before the May 2017 election which brought the Progressives- led government back to power. Jefferson told PAC chairman Roy McTaggart that in June 2017 he had asked the then-minister for ﬁ nance, who at that time was McTaggart himself, if he could send the policy to the new government caucus. In September 2019, a presentation of the draft policy was made to the Progressives’ caucus, which “asked for certain changes and reﬁ nements”, Jefferson said. “On 4 March 2020, you asked me to make the ﬁ nalisation of the policy a priority for 2020,” he told McTaggart. “Unfortunately, COVID-19 came, shut the islands down, and that really destroyed in 2020 much of an opportunity for caucus to meet and to ﬁ nalise the policy, and COVID-19 matters took precedence over the ﬁ nalisation of the revenue concession policy.” Following the PACT- government being elected in April 2021, a slot for the draft policy to be presented by the Ministry of Finance to caucus was given in October, but that was deferred, Jefferson said. He said the current ﬁ nance minister, Chris Saunders, at his own request, was sent the draft policy in February this year. On 2 May, Jefferson said, he was informed by Saunders that a committee consisting of himself, Premier Wayne Panton, ﬁ nancial services minister Andre Ebanks, PAC member Katherine Ebanks- Wilks and chief strategist Pilar Bush had been set up to develop a concessions policy and that was expected to be completed by the end of June. Pressed on whether this was an entirely new policy from the draft that had earlier been circulated, Michael Nixon, senior assistant ﬁ nancial secretary, whom Jefferson described Financial Secretary Kenneth Jefferson told the committee that there had been efforts to implement an ofﬁ cial concessions policy under a number of successive government administrations. - Photo: CIGTV A government committee has been set up to develop a concessions policy, which is expected to be completed by the end of June. cayman compass 8 news N news FRIDAY, 27 MAY 2022as being key in developing the policy, said he understood the committee’s policy would be based on the draft document. No recent large concessions Nixon told the PAC that, in recent years, there had been no large multi-year concessions given to major developments. The last one, he said, was in 2018. He said the Ministry of Finance did not track foregone revenue from “large multi-year concessions”, for example, ones that government has approved for 20 years or more. Those, he said, would be tracked by Customs. “The approval [from Cabinet] would have stated a maximum amount and time period,” Nixon said. “We in the Ministry of Finance don’t see the day-to- day process, so can’t say with certainty, for example, whether $500,000 was processed this year or this month [in relation to a particular concession]. That information would have to come directly from Customs.” Who is monitoring concession conditions? George Town South MP Barbara Conolly raised a query that had been among the concerns expressed by Winspear in her report, about who keeps track of whether a developer or employer, who has been granted concessions, adheres to conditions attached to these waivers, such as employing a speciﬁ ed percentage of Caymanians. Nixon said, in those circumstances, companies typically would give an undertaking to report the number of Caymanians on their staff to the Department of Labour and Pensions, although he noted that he was aware of one instance where a developer reported monthly to the Ministry of Finance on the number of Caymanians being employed there. Conolly asked, “Shouldn’t that be the requirement for every developer – that it be monitored to ensure they are following the conditions they’ve been granted the concessions under?” Nixon responded, “These are some of the exact points we would hope to be addressed comprehensively in the concessions policy and the concession agreements.” Stamp duty concessions Jefferson told the committee that the Ministry of Finance had recorded foregone revenue of $7.5 million in 2021, a large proportion of which was accounted for by the granting of stamp duty concessions to ﬁ rst- time Caymanian property buyers. Some of that foregone revenue, referred to in the meeting as a ‘tax gap’, included import duty waivers to schools or charities who applied directly to the ministry to bring in a vehicle or furniture, he said. Jefferson said the $7.5 million in foregone revenue amounted to 1% of the $961 million in revenue recorded by the ministry last year. This, he said, compares to the UK’s 5.3% ‘tax gap’. However, he acknowledged that the “1% number is too low”, that there are some foregone revenues that would be recorded by CBC and not shared with the Ministry of Finance, such as those revenues relating to multi-year concessions for major developers. He said the ministry and CBC were working on creating better cooperation between the two entities. ‘Not ideal’ Responding to questions from Savannah MP Heather Bodden, Clifford said his own department was “certainly looking forward to the ﬁ nalisation of the concessions policy”, noting that, at times, CBC had to seek clarity from Cabinet regarding some of its instructions on concessions, “and that’s not an ideal situation”. “We do the best we can with the information we have available to us,” he said. “We follow the decisions in Cabinet very, very carefully and usually the concessions have an end date and that’s ﬂ agged in our system.” Asked by East End MP Isaac Rankine if CBC keeps track of the “tax gap”, Clifford said the concessions policy will help to establish an “annual cap in relation to concessions”, thereby making the forecasting of foregone revenue easier. Responding to a question from the PAC chairman McTaggart, Clifford conﬁ rmed that CBC keeps track of the value of concessions granted to developers to ensure that they do not beneﬁ t more than the amount that Cabinet has approved. policy examined Collector of Customs Charles Clifford addresses the Public Accounts Committee. - Photo: CIGTV LUKE COMBS DOIN' THIS PARMALEE WALKER HAYES THOMAS RHETT TIM MCGRAW MORGAN WALLEN JAKE OWEN MIRANDA LAMBERT TAKE MY NAME AA WILD HEARTS SLOW DOWN SUMMER 7500 OBO WASTED ON YOU BEST THING SINCE BACKROADS IF I WAS A COWBOY COUNTRY COUNTDOWN KEITH URBAN 222222222222222222222222222 333333333333333333333333333333333333 4444444444444444444444444444 55555555555555555555555555555555555555555555 6666666666666666666666666666666666666 777777777777777777777777 8888888888888888888888888888 999999999999999999999999999999 10 11111000000000000000000000000000000000 TOP TOP 10 10 HOSTED BY DR DOUG 111111111111111111111111111 JASON ALDEAN TROUBLE WITH A HEARTBREAK TUNE INTO CAYMAN COUNTRY ROOSTER 101.9FM'S AFTERNOON DRIVE WITH DR DOUG EVERY FRIDAY TO HEAR THE LIST! 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