The Government has confirmed the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has given its ‘nod of approval’ to the $567M spending plan in the Cayman Islands 2012/13 Budget.

However, there are conditions:

1. The 

*Passage of the UK-Cayman agreement known as the Framework for Fiscal Responsibility (FFR) agreement the FCO signed with Premier McKeeva Bush last year to be signed into law.
2.  For the next three years government will not be able to appropriate any more funds to any budget once passed, unless it is to fund recovery from natural disasters.
3. The creation of a budget delivery board headed by the Deputy Governor, Franz Manderson and to comprise of an unknown number of members. Those members can include certain representatives of the private sector. Note: This board will assist government in setting longer term fiscal plans and policies between now and 30 June, 2016.
4. The Cayman Islands Government will facilitate reviews of the budget by the FCO’s economic adviser up to four times throughout the year.

It has been reported in other local media sources (iNews Cayman was not invited to an exclusive press briefing last Friday (24) for THREE local media house invitees only) that the premier said, at this meeting: “This approval has validated what my government has been saying all week. That is, that we have presented a credible and sustainable budget to the Legislative Assembly, knowing full well that we had met the requirements set out by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

“If we had followed the thinking of the opposition and independent members of the House and other critics to wait for formal notification, where would we be today? We would have had to scramble next week to meet the deadline for passage of the Appropriations Bill. The course that we have taken in making significant progress in the legislative phase of this budget process was the correct decision.”

See today’s Editorial for the Editor-in-Chief’s reaction to the premier’s exclusive press briefing.