FOI

(CNS): The bulk of a bundle of documents regarding the cruise berthing negotiations and the termination of talks with GLF Construction have now been posted on the CNS website, thanks to the assistance of a reader. The documents, which were revealed to Cayman News Service following a yearlong freedom of information request to the Port Authority, include a copy of the settlement agreement between government and GLF, in which GLF was paid some US$2.5 million in compensation from the public purse. The records also include various minutes of meetings, correspondence between the former premier and the developer and emails between government officials and lawyers.

(CNS): Documents that took almost one year to be released by the Port Authority reveal that keeping records relating to the termination of talks with GLF Construction over cruise berthing facilities under wraps formed part of the settlement agreement. According to the agreement, which has now been released by the authority, clause 6 required GLF to withdraw an FOI request for all the government notes, documents and minutes of meetings relating to the project and GLF made by the firm’s solicitors. A binder of information which was released to CNS last month shows the $2.5 million settlement paid for from the public purse was directly related to the former premier’s decision to terminate the talks.

(CNS): After he took office in May 2009 the former premier of the Cayman Islands visited at least 34 nations across the world, spending more than 403 days on business and a further 142 days of personal time away from Cayman -- almost one third of the time he served as leader. Criticised for the amount of money and time spent off island, a partially granted FOI request by CNS to the premier ’s office revealed that McKeeva Bush took some 74 overseas trips as premier, from Greenland in the frozen North to Indonesia in the Far East. Venice, Paris, New York, Dubai and Shanghai are just some of the destinations he visited before he was ousted from office by his former colleagues on 18 December.

(CNS): Almost one year after CNS submitted a freedom of information (FOI) request regarding the negotiations with the former proposed cruise port developer, GLF, to develop the cruise berthing facilities in George Town, the Port Authority has finally released all of the records in accordance with the findings of the information commissioner’s October decision. On Monday, 10 December the Port Authority’s legal counsel informed the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) that their client would not seek a judicial review, one day after the 45 days the authority was given to release the information, delivering the documents to the commissioner’s office at 5pm.

(CNS): The finance ministry spent more than CI$2.2 million of public money on consultants in the period from November 2009 to September 2011, according to the response to an FOI request made by a CNS reader. The applicant requested information on consultant and travel costs in the premier’s ministry. Although the response refers only to the financial part of McKeeva Bush’s areas of responsibility, it reveals that the Financial Services Secretariat alone spent more than $2 million on expert advice and around $175,000 was spent by the UK office, the Financial Services Administration and the Department of Commerce.  It also shows that the financial departments in the ministry spent over $500k during the same period on travel.

(CNS): More than two months after CNS submitted a freedom of information request for the details and costs of the premier’s overseas trips for the last 12 months, there is still no sign of the information and the ministry has shown a blatant disregard for the Freedom of Information Law. The request was submitted on 5 October but the ministry has completely ignored due process by missing the 30 day deadline and did not request an extension until some three weeks after the statutory time limit had passed. The information manager (IM) then missed the 30 day extension and has now stated that the ministry cannot supply the details until 21 December.

(CNS): The information commissioner has pointed to the need for the auditor general to be able to assure people that sensitive information they give to him will remain confidential so that he can properly conduct the affairs of his office. In her 26th ruling and her second decision relating to an FOI request regarding the RCIPS internal enquiry, Operation Tempura, Jennifer Dilbert sided with the public authority on this occasion and upheld the partial denial of information. However, while the commissioner pointed to the need to protect free and frank discussion and to prevent prejudice against the audit office, she pointed out, not for the first time, an incorrect application of the legal privilege exemption.

(CNS): Traditional resistance by government employees in the Cayman Islands over releasing information to the public to divulging information is “slowly eroding,” the information commissioner told a group of accountants recently. Jennifer Dilbert said that information managers were becoming more comfortable providing information to the public under the freedom of information law during a presentation to the bean counters organised by her office as part of the information commissioner’s outreach. There have been over 2,500 FOI requests made to public authorities since the inception of her office in January 2009.

(CNS): In an exceptionally well researched ruling, the information commissioner has struck a welcome blow for transparency and openness in government and against secrecy. In her latest ruling Jennifer Dilbert has stated that the governor’s office must release documents requested by a witness in the police corruption investigation Operation Tempura that cost the country millions of dollars. The request relates to a complaint filed by the lead investigating officer on the controversial case, Martin Bridger, who claimed the enquiry was shut down early by the authorities. A report by Benjamin Aina, QC, was conducted into the complaint, which was dismissed, but the report was only released to Bridger and has been kept under wraps ever since.

(CNS): Since taking up office in May 2009, the deputy premier has taken 21 different overseas trips to countries across the globe, from Sri-Lanka to the Pacific Islands. Juliana O’Connor-Connolly, who is also the minister for agriculture, works and communications, has racked up a travel and accommodation bill for her ministry alone of more than CI$213,000. Travelling in the Americas and the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, she has attended conferences on telecommunications, agriculture, women’s affairs and Commonwealth Parliamentary Association meetings, spending an accumulative total of more than five months abroad.

(CNS): Although lead investigating officer Martin Bridger and most of his special police investigation team (SPIT) left the island well over three years ago, the discredited enquiry he led into alleged corruption within the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service is still costing the local tax payer money. According to information released by the Portfolio of Legal Affairs, since the last public trial relating to the investigation in October 2009, the attorney general has run up a bill of almost $600,000 dealing with other legal claims and battles that relate to both former police commissioner, Stuart Kernohan, and Bridger in an effort to prevent the former Scotland Yard cop from using documents to clear his own name in Kernohan’s law suit.

(CNS): The Information Commissioner's Office has condemned the Port Authority of the Cayman Islands (PACI) over the way it handled a freedom of information request made by CNS back in January regarding the GLF cruise berthing proposal. In her decision delivered Thursday, some ten months after we made our request, Commissioner Jennifer Dilbert described the procedural issues relating to the request as “unprecedented” and said the authority repeatedly failed to meet deadlines or cooperate with the ICO. “In my opinion PACI showed a total disregard for the policies and procedures of the ICO, and the FOI Law,” the information boss found as she announced that she was conducting a separate investigation under section 44 of the law regarding the port's failure to comply.

(CNS): Despite its difficulties balancing the books, the government waived close to CI$1.5 million in duties during the last financial year. On top of existing discounts on building materials, government also reduced, waived or discounted duties on a range of goods for local business and profit making commercial enterprises as well individuals, charities schools and government departments. According to a list released to a local MLA following a freedom of information request, government cut or waived duty for business such as supermarkets, fireworks companies, hotels and heavy equipment operators between 1 July 2011 and 30 June 2012.

(CNS): The first report conducted by the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) into the local affordable housing scheme shows that government was warned more than eight years ago about the problems that can arise when it fails to follow due process. Reflecting on the report he wrote in August 2004, the former auditor general, Dan Duguay, told CNS that, as old as the report was, it still had some value to government. “There are still lessons to be learned of the dangers of going without proper procurements, which is a recent theme in government. It seems like sometimes government never learns,” Duguay said after the report was released following a freedom of information request by CNS.

(CNS): In her latest decision over a Freedom of Information dispute the information commissioner has upheld a decision by the National Pensions Office to redact some of the documents it finally released. However, in her ruling Jennifer Dilbert highlighted the procedural problems that continue to plague FOI. The process of the request had taken “an inordinately long time”, and while significant records were released in the end, some were not disclosed until the course of the commissioner’s latest hearing, two years after the original request.