The Cayman Islands, since the publicity from John Grisham’s best selling book “The Firm” that was also made into a movie (and partly filmed here), has wallowed in the word ‘secrecy’. Secrecy and Cayman are ‘married’ together in people’s minds as ‘sugar and spice’. No amount of protestations, shouts of ‘foul’ is going to change the mindset of the public and especially journalists.

It came as no surprise that BBC’s Business Editor, Robert Preston, who was commenting on the UK’s Budget would describe our jurisdiction as a ‘secretive tax haven’. Wow. Doesn’t that conjure up clandestine meetings between shady lawyers and bankers with suitcases of money being handed over from the trunks of cars?

Mr. Preston commented on the increase in stamp duty in the UK budget on properties worth over £2m and questioned whether the British government would be able to collect the duty. He stated there were vast numbers of expensive properties that had been transferred into the ownership of offshore companies. “If the higher stamp rate is restricted to companies whose only asset is a house, proving that’s the case won’t be easy for companies registered in secretive tax havens, such as the Cayman Islands,” he said.

However, our knight in shining armour, with sword raised in hand was quickly there to come to our rescue. Anthony Travers (who has contributed to iNews Cayman in the past), the chair of the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange, said,

“Preston, like many other British journalists, is perpetuating the most elementary of errors. There is nothing whatsoever secretive about the Cayman Islands. HMRC has full authority to make any investigation in relation to tax matters pursuant to the UK-Cayman Islands double tax treaty. Furthermore, the standard of anti-money laundering legislation and regulation in the Cayman Islands is such that the ultimate beneficial ownership of every Cayman Islands company is, thereby, available. Mr Peston would have been correct had he been referring to other jurisdictions without these arrangements, eg Switzerland or Monaco,”

Thank you Mr. Travers.

And another of our ‘knights’ is North Side MLA Ezzard Miller. There is much secrecy surrounding the RCIPS investigation into our premier, Hon. McKeeva Bush’s financial affairs that has been ongoing for nearly two years. A letter Mr. Bush is alleged to have written (on Windsor Development letterhead) – a mysterious letter to Texan developer Stan Thomas asking for $350,000 over the rezoning of land. The letter which was handed to the police triggered the investigation. However, nothing has happened.

Miller is baffled, and I think we all share his bewilderment, over the secrecy and the time it is taking to resolve the issue.

“We need explanations from the police chief”, he said on Wednesday (21). “Who is it that is not cooperating? When an investigation is going on for some two years it makes one wonder how wide spread the investigation now is and how far does it go beyond this particular bill.”

“If the police can arrest the former chair of the housing trust board whilst the investigation into irregularities surrounding him continued, what is it that makes the premier so different?” he asked Police Commissioner David Baines.

To date we have not heard of a reply. The trouble with secrecy is the speculation as to why? When it goes on for so long it triggers all sorts of theories. As Mr. Miller rightly points out the situation of McKeeva Bush being the subject of a criminal enquiry while remaining as the Cayman Islands’ leader was undoubtedly damaging the country’s reputation.

“I think it is time for the premier to give the long overdue explanation for what he has described as a real estate bill and clear it all up,” Mr Miller said. “If there is nothing wrong he can easily show us the contract that it relates to or what it was that warranted the payment in connection with the re-zoning of land.”

And so say all of us.