Cayman Gov't in third-world attack on local newspaper
June 08, 2015 by David Marchant
As someone who was thrown out of Bermuda in 1996 for no other reason than being an investigative journalist (or 'a nuisance', as the occupation is known locally), I'm well aware of how sensitive small countries are to criticism.
Their economies are fragile and journalists are expected to be part of a jurisdiction's promotional effort, more than a purveyor of truth. The message to foreign workers is clear: If you don't like it, clear off.
Over the weekend, the publisher of Cayman's daily newspaper, United States national David Legge, did indeed 'clear off', at least temporarily, flying to the safety of the U.S. after the island's Premier, Alden McLaughlin, accused him of treason, no less.
Legge's 'crime' was that his Cayman Compass newspaper, inspired by the arrest in Switzerland of Caymanian FIFA VP Jeffrey Webb for suspected corruption, published an editorial that can best be described as an exercise in stating the obvious, i.e. corruption was so much part of Cayman's culture that locals "don't know it when they see it".
The opinion echoed comments made by Cayman's former Auditor General, Canadian Dan Duguay, at The OffshoreAlert Conference in 2013 during a session entitled "Corruption in OFCs: How Big Is the Problem & What Is Its Impact on International Business?", a video of which can be viewed above. Corruption was "endemic in the country", said Duguay, who reeled off a few of the most egregious examples, including a scam whereby "pretty much everyone in Cayman" has a card to illegally obtain free gas from a fuel facility intended for government vehicles only. The "sense of entitlement" was so strong that the average person couldn't see anything wrong with it, said Duguay.
This culture of corruption was never more evident than last year when Cayman's former Premier McKeeva Bush - a notoriously crooked politician - was unanimously acquitted of all 11 corruption charges he faced, with not a single member of a seven-person jury finding anything criminal with him gambling away tens of thousands of dollars of government funds in foreign casinos. Adding to the farce was the fact that his local counsel was Michael Alberga, who, in 2010, dishonestly provided OffshoreAlert with a falsified copy of a share register to protect U. S. securities fraudster Rani Jarkas, a fraudulent act that seemed to come to Alberga as easy as breathing.
Both Alberga and Bush not only remain unpunished for their actions but they continue to be pillars of the private and public sectors in Cayman, where Alberga is managing partner of prominent law firm Travers Thorp Alberga and Bush is leader of the Opposition, likely to become Premier again in the not-too-distant future.
Despite a plethora of evidence to the contrary, Cayman's current Premier claimed in his response to the local newspaper's opinion on corruption that "Cayman operates a zero tolerance approach to anyone carrying out illicit activities in these islands" before describing the editorial as "a treasonous attack on the Cayman Islands and on all the people of Cayman". Cayman's Finance Committee then voted to stop spending public cash on advertisements in the newspaper, a significant financial blow in such a small market.
With such a 'head-in-the-sand, cry-baby' approach to the most pernicious financial crime facing the world today, McLaughlin's words and the Finance Committee's actions will do little to inspire confidence among the outside world that a jurisdiction routinely-described as 'the world's fifth largest financial center' will do its part to fight what is a global problem. Yes, that's right, whatever corruption exists in Cayman pales with what takes place in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom. At least in those countries, however, there is recognition that a problem exists and journalists are free to report about it without some hot-head leader putting their safety at risk. McLaughlin needs to act more like Obama and Cameron and less like Putin. Cayman's first-class financial services sector can ill-afford to have a third-world political leader.
