EU aid to Cayman Islands - "Have we become a beggar nation?"
"Much has been said during the last few days about the promised aid from the European Union (EU) to assist in the recovery and reconstruction after Hurricane Ivan in September 2004, in other words, some 28 months after the event. The total amount of damage reportedly suffered as a result of the hurricane was $3.4 billion, or $3,400,000,000. The amount sought and apparently promised by the EU is $7.2 million, or $7,200,000. Or, put another way, less than one quarter of one percent of the reported total damage.And, as mentioned, 28 months later we are still apparently pleading with the EU for some money, when there is now very likely little or no justification for its payment. On top of everything else, after the hurricane we then proceeded to disprove the aphorism that foreign aid is the transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
Instead, the poor people of the Cayman Islands themselves became donors of foreign aid to rich people in other countries, with $10 million of our hard earned cash being precipitously awarded by means of a contract to an apparently non-existent company in Tampa for debris removal. Another million dollars went to yet another US company headed by a former Clinton appointee. This was in addition to $720,000 already paid to a former nominee for the post of Speaker of the US House of Representatives, acting as a lobbyist for the Cayman Islands.
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