Monday marks the beginning of International Right to Know Week, an event that encourages transparency by governments.

Its key aim is to emphasise the importance and benefits of government openness and accountability in any democratic society – to provide citizens with the right to know what their government is doing on their behalf.

It is not a little ironic, therefore, that on the eve of Right to Know Week the government has, at short notice, cancelled or postponed three opportunities to inform the people of the Cayman Islands what it is doing on our behalf in response to the substantial budget deficit.

The Cabinet press briefing scheduled for Thursday of last week was cancelled; the public meeting on Thursday evening, at which the Leader of Government Business, Hon. McKeeva Bush, was due to speak, was cancelled at about the time it was due to start; and the Legislative Assembly session planned for Friday, at which the Throne Speech and Budget Address were due to be presented, has been postponed, at first until Monday of this week, but now to a date to be announced.

We do not know if the government realises that the country is stressed out because of these disappointmemts and anxious to hear what is being done or proposed to be done to tackle the current economic crisis but, whether it is or not, it is certainly being reckless in disregarding our right to know what exactly is going on in such a serious situation.

In the absence of any official word, we are always inclined to think the worst – the expression “no news is good news” usually turns out to be the converse of reality.

Our somewhat pessimistic view in this respect is fortified by the opinion piece by Chris Bryant, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) with responsibility for Britain’s Overseas Territories, published in Friday’s Guardian newspaper.

In it, he makes it quite clear that Britain is determined to get its Overseas Territories on a sustainable financial footing, without relying on the traditional tax haven type of business and, in addition, Britain is equally determined to lead by example in relation to its own territories in promoting action on regulating tax havens worldwide.

Once again, the issue of taxation in relation to the Cayman Islands – one of the few Overseas Territories that does not levy any direct income or payroll taxes – was raised by Mr Bryant.

It has been said repeatedly in several quarters here that any form of direct taxation would be injurious to the fundamental economic nature of the Cayman Islands, relying heavily as it does on financial services but, as we have said before, other similar jurisdictions that are also known for their significant reliance on financial services have prospered very nicely while at the same time imposing personal income tax – and in fact are now far better placed to weather the current economic crisis than Cayman.

From the summary on page one of today’s edition, it is clear that for many decades some form of direct taxation has existed side-by-side with the financial services industry in nearly all the Overseas Territories with a significant financial services sector.

It therefore seems to be difficult to argue that the introduction of direct taxation must inevitably gravely injure the financial services industry here, if it is done carefully. When the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands all have either income tax or payroll taxes, we should compare the way that these jurisdictions are weathering the present storms.

Jurisdictions such as Anguilla, the Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands, which up to now have had no income or payroll taxes, are all in a precarious financial position.

It might be argued that some of these successful jurisdictions have also had significant “traditional” industries and therefore their economic model differs from ours. But that, surely, is an argument in favour of the diversification of our economy – again, something we have called for on any number of previous occasions.

It cannot therefore be written in stone that we are forever to be reliant only on the current two economic pillars – finance and tourism.

Of course, a payroll tax and a form of property tax – with a clause exempting current title owners except when such is developed for resale – would not be without pain, but by God’s grace we endured it with Ivan (and Paloma). We can do it now; and we can do it whatever the future puts upon us.