Just because the United Kingdom is dealing with its own debt problems and government scandals over MP expenses does not mean Britain should not try and strive for good governance and financial management in its territories, says the Foreign Office Director for Overseas Territories.
Colin Roberts told the Cayman media this week that he did not feel there was any issue of hypocrisy in Britain’s dealings with Cayman and that the UK wanted Cayman to do well and prosper. "Where there has been a failure or problem with public finance in the UK that does not mean we should not try to make things better in the overseas territories,” he said at a round table meeting with the local press during his short visit to Cayman.
Roberts said the charge, with which he was familiar, that the UK did not have the moral authority to impose standards on Cayman was unfounded, as he said the goal was to see things were done better in the territories as well as in the UK and to work together to improve things. “A huge amount of work is going on in the UK to address the deficit,” he said, adding that it was not logical to say the UK should ignore the public finance problems in Cayman because of its own debt.
In Friday’s Daily Telegraph it was reported that the UK debt in October 2009 was 88 times what it was in October 2008 and that Britain's deficit will remain higher than what it described as “any other major country”, including Iceland and Ireland, unless the government takes far more drastic action to repair it.
However, Roberts did not see the financial circumstances of his own government in any way hindering how the UK directed its territories. He also said that standards of good governance applied to everyone and they were not arbitrary standards made up by the UK just for Cayman, but were standards which the UK was also working to achieve.
Contrary to what people were currently thinking, the UK, Roberts stated, was not trying to undermine the success of the Cayman Islands at all but quite the contrary, as it wanted Cayman to be successful. He said the perspective as seen from London was that the two countries and the people had shared objectives that Cayman should be secure, prosperous and well-governed. He recognised that a number of people here doubted the second objective, but their doubt was misplaced.
“Why on earth would we not want the Cayman Islands to be prosperous?” Roberts asked. He pointed out that if Cayman’s economy was not successful that, as an overseas territory, Cayman would become dependent on the UK tax payer -- a scenario which the UK was intent on avoiding by encouraging better financial management.
Suggestions about diversifying the local economy were all about ensuring that Cayman remained economically successful as well as secure, and that it would be able to weather any future global financial storms, regulation changes or attacks on the financial sector, he observed. “We don’t know where the next external shock will come from,” the OT director said, adding that managing finances was an important part of Cayman’s future security.
He noted that Foot’s report had revealed that, contrary to certain prevailing beliefs, Cayman and London were not in direct competition and that the City had nothing to gain by Cayman’s demise. If Cayman was to cease being a financial player, its business would not go to the UK, and he acknowledged that Cayman played an important role in channelling money and business to the UK’s own financial sector. Contrary to the UK prime minister’s own political views, however, Roberts expressed his belief that, based on the Foot report, the sums lost to all the OFCS from the UK exchequer were nothing like the figures which had been suggested by the NGOs and other pressure groups campaigning against so-called tax havens.
Recognising that there was some turbulence in the relationship between the UK and the Cayman Islands, the FCO rep said that was one of the reasons for his visit as it was important to talk about how things could be improved and how the UK wanted to work in partnership with Cayman. “I am here to listen and to see how we can establish a dialogue on the way forward,” he said adding that the UK was still going to be more closely involved in issues of good governance and public finance management.
Discussing the spectre of the Turks and Caicos Islands, which politicians and the wider public in Cayman have suggested the UK is using a veiled threat to get Cayman to toe the line, Roberts said it was a very different situation. He explained that not only had there been significant mismanagement of public funds in that jurisdiction, but there were issues of political corruption that had nothing to do with the global crisis but which caused the UK major concern.
The meeting with the local press concluded a number of engagements that Roberts had attended during his stay, which included the premier, other government representative and members of the private sector. He confirmed that, while he was returning to the UK, he would be following up discussion with Cayman's premier when Bush next visits London. Roberts also made it clear that the UK would be watching Cayman’s financial progress over the next few months to observe how well it stayed within the projections made for the 2009/10 budget.
FCO rep denies UK hypocrisy
