Bush wanted port cop probe
(CNS): The Cayman Islands premier told the Port Authority director that he intended to ask the police to investigate the leak of an MOU he had signed with China Harbour Engineering Company last year as he believed it had come from the port. The revelation comes from the minutes of a Port Authority board meeting in June, which was released on Friday. Following the FOI request made by CNS for access to documentation regarding the collapsed negotiations with GLF Construction and the talks with CHEC over the development of the George Town cruise berthing facilities, the port has posted on its website the minutes from meetings between 30 April and 25 June dealing with the controversial events.
McKeeva Bush accused the Port Authority on 25 June last year of being the source of the leaked MOU. Expressing his disappointment, he told Paul Hurlston, the port director, and his deputies, Clement Reid and James Parsons, that he was going to have the police look into the leak as it was a serious matter.
However, an RCIPS spokesperson confirmed Friday in the wake of the release of the minutes that the police had never received such a request from the premier.
It was also at this meeting that the premier revealed that he intended to remove some members from the board as he had lost confidence in their ability to be impartial about the cruise facility negotiations when it came to GLF and CHEC.
The documents show the extent of the tensions between all of the board members and in particular the board’s chair, Stefan Baraud, with the premier over the decision to pull out of talks with GLF construction and begin negotiations with CHEC.
The members were particularly concerned about the implications of the legal action which GLF Construction had threatened to take. The legal issues caused alarm to the board members because of the liability they believed they could face as well as the detrimental impact such action could have on the country as a whole. The members also believed that it could hold up the development of the facilities indefinitely.
As a result, they had all agreed at a meeting on 24 June, the day before the meeting with McKeeva Bush on the 25 June, that they would tell the premier they wanted to go back to the GLF proposal.
According to the minutes, members had unanimously agreed they could not support the premier’s decision to negotiate with CHEC. Baraud told the members that he had met with the Chinese firm and in his opinion they were “not fully prepared to commence the project in a timely manner.”
The deputy chairman, Woody Foster, stated in the 25 June meeting that he had been uncomfortable with the way the process had gone since the initial selection of DECCO and had already expressed those concerns to the premier. As a result of not planning to serve a full term on the port board, the minutes record that Foster took the opportunity to step down there and then.
Despite the position of the board, the legal advice from the authority's lawyers and a report from KPMG all advising against the premier’s decision, the board membership was changed and Bush continued on with the CHEC negotiations. Although he had taken charge of those talks initially, more recently George Town back bench MLA Elio Solomon has been at the forefront of the talks with the Chinese.
At this stage, some ten months after GLF said it was weeks away from being able to mobilize and begin the pier development, there is still no agreement in place with government and a developer for the cruise facilities.
See related CNS story Port releases disputed papers
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