Alden McLaughlin PPM Member	Kurt Tibbetts Leader of the PPM

Mwangi Ngamate
mwangi@caymannetnews.com

Former Leader of Government Business and now leader of the opposition People’s Progressive Movement (PPM), Kurt Tibbetts, has refuted accusations that his government had mismanaged the economy of the Cayman Islands.

Mr Tibbetts was speaking at a PPM National Council Public Meeting held at the Cayman Islands Seafarers Hall on Monday, 2 November.

The PPM party leader defended his government’s expenditure, noting that all projects were carried out in a transparent manner and were there for all and sundry to see.

“Yes we have a deficit, everything that we did, you can see it and it was necessary,” he told the audience gathered at the Prospect venue.

“If in two years’ time those schools are not yet done, there will be rioting, because students and pupils will not be absorbed in the existing institutions,” he said.

Current Leader of Government and Premier designate, Hon. McKeeva Bush, has blamed the Cayman Islands’ financial woes on what he claims were the PPM’s extravagant spending, the mismanagement of the Clifton Hunter and John Gray schools projects, as well as the PPM’s refusal to take advice.

“When we took over in 2005, we started making our manifesto a reality, we embarked on building schools and infrastructure based on the revenue and projected expenditure,” Mr Tibbetts noted.

“After all this has happened everybody knows that to build schools and new roads needs time to make it happen,” he said.

The Leader of Opposition said that the country’s financial situation has taken a turn for the worse, everyone has been criticising the past administration and casting blame for every ill facing the country.

“The current leader of government criticised us to the international media, saying that the country was bankrupt.

“When the media made commentary, he quickly said that it was not the case.

“He needs to accept the times for what they are. In the first quarter of the year there was a 21 million dollars shortfall in revenue. There will be another shortfall this time and it cannot be blamed on the PPM.

“Whether schools were built or not, there would have been an operational deficit.

“We are not sure whether the projected revenues will be achieved and this has founded fears in the financial industry that might cause business to go away,” Mr Tibbetts noted.

He said that the government should be busy saying how it is going to cut the operational deficit and still protect pensioners, since this was still the job of the government.

Defending the PPM’s refusal to endorse the budget, the Leader of the Opposition said that they preferred not to vote against the budget because of government commitments, but still could not vote ‘yes’ because they were not sure of the projected revenue streams.

“They have choices like everyone has in their household, either to increase revenue or cut expenditure, one or the other, or employ both,” he noted.

Mr Tibbetts feared that the current deficit would increase despite ‘chest thumping’ by the UDP.

“We all pray that it doesn’t happen. We don’t know how it will pan out. But we have offered to assist in writing but received no reply,” he said.

Speaking in the same meeting, MLA for George Town and former minister for education, Alden McLaughlin, said that the government had adopted short cuts to make superficial changes in expenditure. He noted that the government had abandoned the project of building of a swimming pool and three kitchens in the Clifton Hunter campus in North Side.

When contacted for comment on the PPM’s allegations, Mr Bush only labelled the PPM as a “desperate and failing machine.”

“If they were competent and credible, people would not have replaced them,” the Premier Designate said.