Facility incomplete

The government is out almost $400,000 paid to Hadsphaltic Ltd. as a mobilisation fee to build the Mosquito Research and Control Unit’s new hangar near Owen Roberts International Airport.

Hadsphaltic was put into liquidation last July, only weeks after it abandoned the job site.

The mobilisation fee for the contract represented 10 per cent of the total cost of the contract, which was for $3,998,273.79.

Responding to a Freedom of Information request, Niasha Ross, the Public Works Department project manager for the hangar project, stated the government is seeking to reclaim the mobilisation fee through the liquidator, Johnson Smith and Associates.

In the meantime, construction on the hangar facility remains idle, with no completion date set.

The Cayman Islands Government officially cancelled its contract with Hadsphaltic to build the MRCU hangar on 7 August, 2010.

“Forty per cent of the work has been completed,” Ross said. “Tenders for the completion of construction have been closed at the Central Tender’s Committee; however, there has been no award of contract to date.”

US citizens with undeclared 
offshore accounts

US taxpayers who maintain undeclared offshore accounts will get another opportunity to disclose them to US authorities without facing criminal prosecution, the Internal Revenue Service announced last week.

The 2011 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative will be available until 31 August, 2011.

It requires taxpayers to pay up to 25 per cent of the highest annual aggregate account balance from 2003 through 2010, plus back taxes, interest and other tax penalties for those years.

According to the IRS, the failure to disclose offshore accounts and filing false tax returns are criminal offences that carry prison terms and fines of up to $500,000.

Crime prevention strategy

Cayman Islands Governor, Premier, ministers and senior advisors have met to review Cayman’s national crime prevention strategy.

The proposed adoption of the plan, which has not yet been disseminated for public review, comes on the heels of a high-profile robbery of two tourists on a remote East End beach that seized the headlines and got the attention of the local hospitality industry.

Premier Bush said last week that he was deeply concerned about the robbery, which he called senseless.

“I am outraged by this assault and cannot begin to understand the mentality of persons who would commit such unwarranted acts against others,” Bush said, “The rise in crime is unacceptable, especially since such attacks by thoughtless individuals are capable of doing irreparable damage to our tourist industry, our economy and our country.”

Unemployment figures

Cayman Islands Employment Minister Rolston Anglin said that there were more than 2,400 people registered with the Department of Employment Relations.

Of those, 977 were registered as “unemployed”, according to the agency’s database.

The present estimated unemployment rate in Cayman was 9.9 per cent, however Anglin cautioned that the Department of Employment relations records were not the sole records used in calculating unemployment.

“The Economics and Statistics Office [is[ responsible for estimating unemployment and all major statistics in the country,” the

minister noted. According to a statistics office report for the end of 2009, total unemployment in the Cayman Islands stood at about six per cent.

However, the same report also indicated that Caymanian unemployment at the end of the year was 9.8 per cent. Typically, unemployment figures for non-Caymanians are low as most individuals cannot stay here if they do not have a job.

It was unclear whether Anglin’s 9.9 per cent figure was for Caymanians only or for the entire population

of the Islands. According to the employment relations figures, for the 977 people registered as unemployed, the vast majority – 816 people – were either Caymanians or status-holders.

Some 129 permanent residents were registered as being unemployed and 32 spouses of Caymanians were unemployed.

Gunshots fired at house

Opposition party MLA Arden McLean blasted the ruling government at a political meeting over Cayman’s crime situation, which he said has gone “out of control”.

An emphatic point was placed on the Legislative Assembly member’s comments when gunshots were fired at a home on Sea View Road in McLean’s East End district early in the morning.

One of the bullets struck a window, but no one was hurt in the incident.

“The people of East End awoke [Saturday] morning to yet another shooting,” Mr. McLean told an audience of more than 200 people at the Mary Miller Hall in George Town.

The report of gunshots being fired at the house on Sea View Road came in at about 2.40am, police said.

No arrests were immediately announced.