….. I’m leavin’ on a jet plane

Don’t know when I’ll be back again

John Denver’s classic song has kept ringing in my ears today after receiving the People’s Progressive Movement’s (PPM) press release about the Cayman Islands Premier seemingly forever leaving our Islands and not knowing where or when he is returning. This was followed by his reply from his press secretary, Charles Glidden.

I have on two occasions asked the question why doesn’t Premier McKeeva Bush announce where he is going, why he is going and when he is coming back? Is he deliberately trying to leave secretly so as not to be in the middle of a fire that might turn into an inferno and prevent him from leaving? I can come up with no other explanation for his conduct.

The PPM rightly asks similar questions.

“Not only has the Premier been frequently absent for long periods at times, with the public not being advised of the reasons for his absence from the Islands, but recently we also see that the Deputy Premier was at the same time visiting Qatar for a Postal Union conference,” they said.

At least the Deputy Premier did announce why and when. Perhaps her being away at the same time as the premier was because she was left in the dark that he was going to be away?

The premier’s reply was reasonable at it goes.

“Every government must travel to conduct business. Whether it’s a lot of travel or little, all depends on the business that has to be conducted. My travels and that of the Deputy Premier don’t normally overlap however this time it could not be avoided because of the nature of the meetings, hers for postal matters and mine for finance, both of which had agendas which were set by the international bodies, each in their very different but significant areas of responsibility. Cayman’s ability to do business in the global arena is positively affected by us being seen to effectively maintain our international good governance and regulatory obligations,” he said.

Then he has to get on his favourite soap box again and bash the PPM.

“As Premier, my job is to promote the Cayman Islands in a positive manner and bring new opportunities for the future, whether for finance, tourism and development or otherwise. This can’t be done using the same old strategies that the PPM used. We have clearly seen and felt what that did for us. New and emerging markets must be explored and positive partnerships made or else we will end up with the same deficits and no money to pay off the big loan bill that the PPM left us; nor money, for that matter, to deal with the growing needs of our developing community.”

When is he ever going to stop this continual blame on the previous government? But then, US President Obama in his debate last night blamed all the woes his government is in on the Republican George W. Bush administration.

Both our Bush and Obama seem to forget they knew their countries were in problems and they promised they would put them right. The general public believed them and that is why the previous administrations got thrown out. Neither of them campaigned on a promise of “we will try” or “we hope we will make things better for you”. They campaigned on the word “WILL”.

Neither the USA nor the Cayman Islands, whose size and population couldn’t be more different, have the same problem. We are not better off under the administrations who promised us a better and new world.

For McKeeva Bush to even slam the PPM for the building of the Government Administration Building, “a facility that the PPM built, again without proper financing”, in a release that is supposedly to explain where, why and when, is almost beyond belief.

He said he wasn’t ‘absent without leave’ as the Governor was informed each and every time I’m off island (though under the new constitution I don’t need his permission to be off island).

Mr. Bush you didn’t inform your people where, why and when and your press Secretary wasn’t in a position to tell the media where, why and when. We all had to guess.

I am not going to stick up for the Compass nor CNS for the reasons why they continue to give them (the PPM) front page coverage as they are quite able to explain why themselves, except to say it was probably newsworthy.

How many press meetings has the Premier called and not invited all the press especially CNS? As for iNews, we seldom get an invite and not even from the PPM since presumably I didn’t always write flattering editorials about them!

There are pressing needs at home and many, many issues to deal with. Your people are worried, Mr. Bush. Being kept in the dark and your seemingly leaving your ship to flounder on its own without a rudder makes everyone feel another Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster is looming. The prosecutor who is working on that case said today “only the hand of God” saved the situation. (See today’s story “Prosecutor says ‘hand of god’ prevented worse ship disaster”.) I don’t think you have ever been called “God”. There was not enough time to avert the sinking and time is fast running out here. We all can feel us getting increasingly close to the rocks.

What we don’t want to keep hearing is blame, blame, and more blame on the PPM. Yes, we KNOW the PPM hasn’t proposed solutions to our problems and we KNOW they made many mistakes and I have even heard PPM leader Alden McLaughlin admit it.

Produce the results you keep telling us about. Produce the openness you campaigned on. We don’t want to hear excuses. Their opposition hasn’t been “vicious”. Most have felt there hasn’t been an opposition. If there had maybe you wouldn’t be leaving on a jet plane with very, very few of us knowing when you will be back again.