Kearney Gomez Supervisor of Elections	Mark Scotland UDP candidate	Dwayne Seymour UDP candidate

By Tad Stoner
tad@caymannetnews.com

Lawyers and the Supervisor of Elections have rejected claims by the United Democratic Party (UDP) that its two Bodden Town candidates have fulfilled public disclosure requirements, insisting that a 20 May poll victory by either one can be challenged.

Denying a UDP claim that “our candidates are satisfied they have made full and frank disclosure and been completely transparent,” Supervisor of Elections Kearney Gomez told Cayman Net News the two candidates would be vulnerable to challenge in the Grand Court after any election victory, although both Mark Scotland and Dwayne Seymour are still at liberty to run as candidates.

“This has nothing to do with the Elections Office. It’s the constitution that outlines what happens,” Mr Gomez said, “and nothing will really happen until after the general election. I don’t bring the challenge. It’s the Attorney General.”

In a 29 April statement, the UDP claimed that “recent reports in the media” that Mr Scotland and Mr Seymour had been disqualified from running on 20 May were “false and inaccurately reported”.

Mr Gomez did not dispute that the candidates could run, but warned of the aftermath.

“We can’t take them off the ballot,” he said, but they could face a Grand Court judge within 21 days of winning the election.

“In relation to recent threats from their political opponents that they will seek to have Bodden Town’s lawfully elected representatives removed from office following the general election,” the UDP statement went on, “our candidates are satisfied that they have made full and frank disclosure and been completely transparent with all information required from them in order to qualify them as candidates and to be elected to sit in the Legislative Assembly.”

Lawyer and founding UDP member Steve McField explicitly rejects that statement.

“The legal position is that Section 19 of the constitution is very clear. It says no one shall be eligible to be elected if they have not declared their interests in government contracts at least 30 days before the election. That’s what it says, and that’s under the constitution,” he said. “It’s not under the Election Law because it is to be taken very seriously. It is also in the new draft constitution, in the same words, verbatim, under Section 62.”

The controversy erupted last week when it emerged that, contrary to the Cayman Islands constitution, neither Mr Scotland nor Mr Seymour had declared the government contracts held by their private companies. The declaration was supposed to come by 20 April, one month before the 20 May election, in a formal notice published in the Cayman Islands Gazette, the official publication of the Cayman Islands government.

Both Mr Scotland and Mr Seymour have acknowledged the missed deadline, and defended it as an “oversight” while pointing to their late-March “declaration of interests” to the Legislative Assembly, a statement of company directorships required under the Election Law.

The LA statements did not, however, reveal that Mr Scotland’s road paving consulting firm of MCM holds at least two contracts with Government, of which both are with the National Roads Authority (NRA).

The first (dated April 2008 and worth nearly $234,000) is for pavement surveys and management. The second (dated September 2008 and worth $266,000) is for designing an extension to the East-West Arterial.

“We occasionally buy hot mix asphalt from them and Island Paving for pot-hole patching,” said NRA Managing Director Brian Tomlinson. “This is simply purchased at the current retail price via purchase orders. These purchases are usually less than $2,000 each. We also occasionally rent equipment from them to supplement our fleet or if something is broken down, such as a roller, dump truck …these are also dealt with via purchase orders.”

Mr Scotland’s Advanced Road Construction and Paving held three NRA contracts in 2007 and 2008, all now finished, although Mr Scotland said he was awaiting final payment for the $1.6 million reconstruction of George Town’s Dorcy Drive.

He has also acknowledged two other contracts: one with the Ministry of Sports for five football fields and another with the Ministry of District Administration for the parking lot at the new Government Office Administration building.

Mr Seymour’s APS airport security company has held a contract with Cayman Airways since 2001.

”The reason for the law is that the drafters took the view that if you were elected and you had an interest in government contracts, it’s not a good position. It’s a potential conflict of interest and so you should declare it,” Mr McField said.

Despite the UDP’s claim of “full and frank disclosure”, albeit in alternate media, nothing appeared by 20 April in Cayman Islands Gazette, Mr McField said: “The method of disclosure is ‘Government Notice’, not the newspaper or a website. These guys don’t read the constitution and they are not fit to be elected. They have three lawyers in the party -- Pearlina McGaw-Lumsden, Sherri Bodden-Cowan and Juliana O’Connor-Connolly -- and they don’t read the constitution, and especially not the new one.”

Mr McField went on to ask, “How can they run for office?

How can they come to the public and represent the country?

How can they serve under the constitution when they haven’t even read it?

It’s the primary law of the land.”