Government ignoring key laws, says opposition leader
The Unity government is failing to comply with, or fully implement, its own legislation written to ensure good governance in the Cayman Islands, even as it is in the process of executing a number of costly and far-reaching public projects and contracts, the opposition leader has said. Ezzard Miller called on the administration to implement the Standards in Public Life Law, establish the necessary oversight committee for the Procurement Law and follow the requirements of the Public Authority Law. He said the Legislative Assembly passed these laws over the last few years to safeguard integrity and good governance but they are not being applied.
“The impact of this non-compliance is that solid principles of procurement and good governance are not being observed, and the necessary accountability for and management of government resources are consequently being undermined,” Miller said in a statement about the implications of government’s failure to follow its own good governance legislation.
Miller, who is chair of the Public Accounts Committee, pointed out that the Standards in Public Life Law was passed in March 2014 and amended in 2016, but no commencement order has been made to bring it into effect, despite the creation of the Commission for Standards in Public Life some eight years ago. The commission has advocated ever since for the legislation, but according to Miller, the failure to enact the law has “neutered” that board.
The Procurement Law, 2016 has been implemented but government has not established the necessary oversight body. “The result is that this law is still languishing on a shelf gathering dust,” Miller said, noting that without the oversight committee the law has no teeth.
Miller said that prior to the commencement of the law, the governor had contacted him, as leader of the opposition, to nominate a member to the commission. Miller had named Dr Sidney Ebanks in March but he has never been contacted.
“What we have essentially is a situation in which no one is minding the store, and therefore good business practices can easily be swept under the carpet,” he said. “The real losers here are the people of the Cayman Islands who must stand the cost of these projects and bear the burdens of losses and failures.”
To underscore the importance of compliance with this particular law and its regulations, Miller said that in many cases the required transparency of processes is not being followed.
Meanwhile, the Public Authorities Law, 2017 came into force on 1 June. This law sets out the roles and responsibilities of the Cabinet, ministers, chief executive officers and boards, and while this law is fully operational, Miller believes its requirements are being ignored, and he pointed to the recent appointment of the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange CEO, which he said was in violation of five sections of the law, and the Port Authority’s recent handling of recruitment and firings.
Miller added that the two biggest projects that Cayman has seen in many years, the airport development and the cruise berthing tender, are “staggering under the weight of mismanagement and non-compliance”. Miller said that in a fully compliant scenario, the Port Authority Board would assume leadership of projects like the cruise facility.
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