The Auditor General, Alastair Swarbrick, made public on Wednesday, 23 May a public interest report on Road Paving Expenditure in Cayman Brac. This is the first time the Office of the Auditor General has issued this type of report, as part of the new reporting framework, which provides the Members of the Legislative Assembly and the public with information about a particular issue. In his report, Mr Swarbrick outlined his concerns about how the Ministry of District Administration, Works, Lands and Agriculture (the “Ministry”) spent at least $521,000 paving private parking lots in Cayman Brac out of government funds approved for a programme designated to improve public roads. The expenditures were incurred from 2009 and continue to the current date. ...

  [caption id="attachment_707" align="alignleft" width="210" caption="Collector of Customs, Mr Carlon Powery, MBE, JP."][/caption] After a distinguished career spanning 40 years, Collector of Customs, Mr Carlon Powery, will be retiring on 31 May 2012. Mr Powery, who decided last year to retire after four decades in service, has seen revenue collected by his department grow from a few million dollars an ...

[caption id="attachment_703" align="alignleft" width="180" caption="Anton Duckworth"][/caption] Anton Duckworth is the chairman of the People’s Progressive Party. According to former George Town MLA Lucille Seymour, Mr Duckworth is one of the courageous new Caymanians who has decided to join hands with born Caymanians to build the country. “This is the only way Cayman can be peaceful -- if we who were born ...

There is a great concern expressed in the New Testament, and particularly in the writings of St. John, for Truth. It is in St John’s account of the passion of the Lord, that an exchange between Jesus and Pontius Pilate ends with Pilate asking, perhaps mockingly, “What is Truth?” In St. John’s Epistle and Gospel also there is considerable emphasis on testimony or witness, terms that we sometimes encounter in judicial proceedings of various sorts. St John emphasises that God provides reliable testimony concerning His Son, and in John chap. 17 Jesus affirms that He has declared the Name of God and the words of God to His followers faithfully, and that in receiving them they enter into the realm of Truth. ...

We take so much for granted in this life, even when we plan for tomorrow. Of course, we think that tomorrow will arrive just the same as today did, and we expect that our plans will evolve as we planned, and we go about our daily lives not expecting ‘the unexpected’. To take something for granted is to assume we will never lose it. Have you ever noticed how important your right hand is, for example? Probably not….unless you lose the use of it. I look at my hair now and marvel at the fact that when I was younger it was so thick and ‘full of life’! ...

Being limited in natural resources, the Cayman economy must find ways to continuously expand. Unlike other economies that can rely on cross-subsidisation from revenues derived from minerals, manufacturing, agriculture or other resources, the Cayman Islands can only rely on its people. The recent population census placed unemployed Caymanians at 1,676. This is an opportunity for the government to create more ...

Jeffrey Webb, president of the Cayman Islands Football Association was confirmed as president of CONCACAF earlier this week at the federation’s congress in Budapest, Hungary. Mr Webb was the sole candidate for the post and going into the congress, had received the nominations of some 29 of the 40 member countries in the North and Central America and Caribbean football body. Mr Webb has over 20 years in leadership positions in football, as President of the CIFA, FIFA Executive Committee (Observer), Chairman of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Normalisation Committee, member of the FIFA Transparency and Compliance Committee, Deputy Chairman of the FIFA Internal Audit Committee, and Chairman of the CONCACAF Youth Committee. ...

[caption id="attachment_687" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Diamond Jubilee Committee Chairperson Mary J. Lawrence, and Deputy Chairperson Mr Lemuel Hurlston, who is also Cayman’s Royal Commonwealth Society representative."][/caption] The grand launch of the local observance of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee takes place this Saturday, 26 May at Pedro St. James. The public is invited to parti ...

The Auditor General, Alastair Swarbrick has found “a number of significant weaknesses” in the operations of the Cayman Islands National Insurance Company Ltd. (CINICO), the government-run health insurance scheme. In a performance audit entitled, “Management of Overseas Medical Services”, released on Wednesday, 23 May, Mr Swarbrick provided an assessment of how well CINICO is providing overseas health manage ...

Vis Vires is a latin word meaning force, power, strength, might and influence. It is also the name of a startling collection of art by local artists put together by Arteccentrix Gallery owner Nickola McCoy-Snell. It can be seen upstairs at Woods Furniture for the next six weeks, and is certainly worth seeing . ...