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Protocols need renegotiating – 3D Show caller
The caller felt that Hon. Simmonds, the Minister responsible for Overseas Territories (OTs) was just “trying to let it pass just like this… without going into it and negotiating and finding out what is good for the people” and suggested that we can’t allow that to happen. "When a thing is wrong, it's wrong," the caller suggested about the protocols.
The caller further suggested that we have a right at this time to “get into it before it goes further.”
Hon. Simmonds in his recent visit to the Territory on October 23, 2012 said there was no need for the protocols to be negotiated and felt that the protocols in place were “right” in their current state.
He also revealed that if at some point in the future the Premier or his successors say that there may be a need to revisit the Protocols, then that is something either himself or his successors can look at but it was not something he felt was appropriate for today.
The caller agreed that there was need to have money in reserve as the protocols stipulate but suggested, “we have to look at the people in who were there in need”.
He felt that when there was money tied up in reserve then persons would be left without support, “somebody got to look into this and come up with something for the people,” he said.
The caller also raised the issue of the recent alleged multi-million dollar lawsuit threat by Global Water Associates to the government and asked where the money would be coming from. “In the end,” he said, “we [will] feel the brunt.”
He concluded by suggesting that the country, though small, has a lot of problems and “we need to get [the] small problems solved before we jumped on the big problems.”
Stand-in host for the programme, Natalio Wheatley aka Sowande Uhuru, suggested that the protocols could have been better negotiated with the addition of a more experienced person to the negotiating team that represented the territory. For such important negotiations he said “perhaps maybe somebody a little more experienced, of course a legal mind, would have helped.”
Meanwhile, the Cayman News Network recently reported that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is prepared to force the Framework for Fiscal Responsibility into local legislation if the Cayman Islands Government fails to live up to the commitment it made following the budget approval from London in August.
It stated that sources have told CNS that the UK is not going to allow the premier to alter the framework via additional clauses or by removing any of its content and is expecting the document to be passed into law during the forthcoming sitting of the Legislative Assembly. If not, it will push the FFR through via an Order in Council. However, CNS has learned that the legislation being drawn up will include changes to the original agreement.
Premier McKeeva bush has said publicly that he dislikes various elements of the framework and wants to change parts of it as well as introduce additional clauses. The UK, however, has been unequivocal about that and is insisting that the bill it expects to come to the Legislative Assembly in November is exactly the same as the document signed by the premier almost one year ago.
An Order in Council is a statutory provision which forms part of the UK’s reserve powers as the colonial master of the Cayman Islands, enabling it to legislate for any of its overseas territories when it deems it necessary. The move is a last resort and is generally reserved for when the UK feels its interests are at risk.
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