EDITORIAL

Cayman is on Trial

Friday, November 19, 2004

There is no doubt that the Cayman Islands occupy a very special place in the global community, whether as a financial centre and home to billions of dollars; as a destination for hundreds of thousands of tourists annually; or as a second home for hundreds if not thousands of foreign owners of local property.

We believe it is fair to say, therefore, that our importance to a very large number of people worldwide is considerably out of proportion to our size and geo-political influence. This fact seems to have escaped the overseas media during the passage of Hurricane Ivan, but that is not the point of our commentary on this occasion.

The point we do want to make, however, is that there is a multitude of global observers watching our progress in, and handling of the post-Ivan recovery and reconstruction. We have remarked on several previous occasions in a different context that the eyes of the world are on the Cayman Islands, made possible in part by news and other information made available on the Internet.

This global scrutiny has greatly intensified in recent weeks if the traffic to our website, which has increased by several orders of magnitude since Ivan, is anything to go by.

The recovery from Ivan is giving the country an opportunity to demonstrate to the world either that we are on the road to maturity as a developed jurisdiction, or we are behaving as a typical third-world country. Thus far, we seem to have been sending mixed messages in this regard.

By and large, our telecommunications and utilities restoration has been nothing short of exemplary, given the extensive infrastructure damage sustained. Many major corporations have been generous to a degree that would hardly have been imaginable in pre-Ivan days.

On the other hand, other business sectors, notably the insurance companies, have been dragging their feet to the point of obstruction in our recovery efforts. Some of our readers have called for regulatory intervention in this situation and, interestingly, such calls are being echoed in another Caribbean island hard-hit by Ivan – Grenada. 

Perhaps these events will lead to a better-regulated business environment because local residents are now feeling what it is like to be poorly treated by insurance companies. On other occasions when we have called for more effective regulation in these areas, our suggestions have fallen on deaf and/or apathetic ears because the victims of the collapse of Cayman-regulated insurance companies and other financial firms have usually affected nameless and faceless foreigners. This time the fallout is much more ‘up close and personal’ and, being the supreme optimists, we are hopeful that pressure of local public opinion will now precipitate a much-needed improvement.

Another complaint we have in common with those also voiced in Grenada is that the banks, whilst not being obstructive, haven’t exactly been over-helpful, either. If a local telecommunications company can effectively pump millions of dollars into the local economy by means of assistance and aid to Cayman residents without expecting anything in return, then surely the banks can be equally generous. Clearly, there is a completely different corporate mentality and culture involved.

And then we have various government actions and inactions, which are likely to be more revealing than anything as to the state of the country.

We did not get off on the right foot, with anodyne press releases and what was widely perceived as media restrictions, so beloved of banana republics everywhere.

Regrettably, this image is now being reinforced by the award of a highly questionable ‘sweetheart’ contract for debris removal to an initially fictitious company that now turns out to have possible connections to people of political and other influence.

All these events, big and small, play out on the world stage and, together, create an impression in the court of world perception and opinion. Cayman is on trial and it would be best not to be found wanting.

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