EDITORIAL

A Regrettable Decision

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

The recent signing of the debris removal contract with a recently formed local company that is foreign-owned is a matter of great regret to us, along with many like-minded residents of the Cayman Islands.

At issue is not the fact that the debris needs to be collected and disposed of, but the manner in which the contract was entered into and the value we are getting for ten million dollars. The last thing we needed in the immediate aftermath of Ivan is a questionable transaction replete with so many dubious elements.

We have seen suspicious transactions in the past but none in recent memory has matched this one, not so much for its lack of transparency as for its blatant opacity and, at the outset at least, what seems to amount to deliberate deception.

As we have noted on an earlier occasion, the initial government press release referred to MC Restoration of Tampa, Florida, a company of experience and financial standing, yet there is no trace whatsoever of such an entity in that state. There is, furthermore, no trace that we can find of its supposed principals in the State of Florida corporations database.

Having publicly raised this issue some days ago, one would have thought that the parties concerned would have been anxious to come forward in an attempt to clarify the situation but, so far, this has not happened. This in itself is bound to give rise to further suspicions.

Then we have the bizarre situation of an earlier and lower bid from the same contractors being rejected, following which the committee that rejected it was disbanded and an apparently more receptive and compliant one established.

The required Local Companies Control Law licence now appears to have been rushed though in record time, without the advertisements required by statute being placed, and with at least two members of the Trade and Business Licensing Board having to recuse themselves on the grounds of a conflict of interest.

Not only is there no evidence whatsoever of the experience and financial standing of the contractor that the government has claimed as the basis for awarding the contract in the first place, but the very law designed to encourage and promote local participation in business and commerce in the Cayman Islands has been circumvented.

Furthermore, given that the contractor now turns out to be a brand new foreign-owned local company, the experience and financial standing claim cannot be true in relation to the entity with which the government has contracted.

The law requires every local company to make available its register of shareholders for inspection by the public upon giving the required notice and paying a reasonable charge. The location of the registered office of the company where such records must be kept is also a matter of public record, ascertainable through the Registrar of Companies. Any member of the public who wishes to verify these details is therefore entitled and enabled to do so by operation of law.

Another issue in relation to the contract is what exactly are we paying MC Restoration to do? They are apparently not actually removing any debris from Grand Cayman. Many of our residents have already paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for debris to be removed from their yards. The contractor is now publicly soliciting local heavy equipment operators to come forward for work. This is, of course, as it should be, but if there is sufficient capacity locally to complete the job, why do we need a foreign contractor in the first place?

In fact the only thing that is seemingly being recycled in this debris contract are huge sums of money.

As stated, although many are justifiably outraged, our reaction to this situation is one of deep sadness and regret that something so egregious can take place in the Cayman Islands, especially at this point in time.

Whether it will become a source of similar regret to the perpetrators, whoever they may be, only time, and perhaps the contest for public office next year will tell.

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