The leaders of the People’s Progressive Movement say they are in the process of rebuilding their party and still intend to implement as much of their election manifesto as possible.
Leader of the Opposition Joey Hew and Deputy Opposition Leader Kenneth Bryan were speaking on 10 July on Compass TV’s Forefront political talk show.
The PPM secured the most seats of any political party in the general election last April, but it was still not enough to form a government. And with just seven PPM members elected to Parliament, successful candidates from the two rival parties joined forces with independents to secure the 10 seats needed to form the government.
“With five sitting members retiring before the last election, we are now in a rebuilding phase,” said Hew, who added, “We made promises to the country and in our manifesto and, just because we are in opposition, doesn’t mean we are not going to try to fulfil those promises.”
Bryan said the seven MPs from his party are strongly united and have the experience, discipline and historical knowledge to be a formidable opposition, and while they plan to work with the new government when their policies are aligned and in the best interest of the country, he said they also intend to hold the administration accountable.
Housing, cost of living, immigration reform, the dwindling cruise tourism market and beach erosion were all covered during the Forefront show, with the opposition members saying the lack of a strategic policy statement from the new government was presenting challenges.
Strategic Policy Statement
During the first sitting of Parliament, the new administration requested and secured a delay in issuing their Strategic Policy Statement, which sets out the broad strategic outcomes and priorities of the government.
“It is a document that is used to hold the government accountable,” said Hew. “It speaks a lot to transparency, so here is a government that was elected by the people of this country, they formed the government, and now they are creating a budget without anyone knowing what their goals are for the country.
“I doubt we will see an SPS until late October, and it won’t give us enough time, in my opinion, to scrutinise the SPS and scrutinise the budget when we get that a few weeks later.”
“We all said we wanted to cooperate rather than be adversarial, but when we don’t know what the government is doing, it makes it very difficult for us to do our job, or to help them,” said Bryan.
During the Forefront show, the two members of the opposition said the government should already have a good understanding of the challenges facing the country and how they are going to address them, and when the Strategic Policy Statement is released, the private sector and others can assist with the process.
Cost of living
The National Coalition For Caymanians government, on 27 June, announced it planned to increase Cayman’s minimum wage from $6 per hour to $8.75 per hour, as of 1 Jan. 2026.
“We all campaigned on cost of living; we haven’t heard a word [from the government] about cost of living yet,” said Hew on the Forefront show. “Minimum wage is just a small part of that, but what we have right now is a middle class under stress, under pressure, and we have not heard a word about what they are going to do about that.”
Bryan agreed with Hew, adding, “What you are seeing now is a lot of the work that we did in the last administration, that they’re coming out and attacking. With the minimum wage, unfortunately, we just couldn’t execute because we didn’t have consensus. We were almost there to just deliver on what the report [from the Minimum Wage Committee] said. I was a major supporter of that, and I’m very happy in respect to that.”
The opposition leader, however, questioned the handling of the recent minimum wage announcement by Minister Michael Myles. “He said it was $8.75 across the board, that’s it. So we asked about carve-outs for gratuities and domestics and he said no, it’s $8.75 across the board. And then, very quickly after that, the minister for tourism announced there would be a carve-out for gratuities … and then we heard from the minister in the press conference that there’s a carve-out for domestics as well.”
Bryan added, “This is the grace period, and I am not going to beat him up too much, but you have to realise that when you are the minister for that position, every word that comes out of your mouth, particularly when you don’t have an SPS that outlines government’s position, people are going to take every word that you say as facts, and as the leader of the opposition said, piecemeal approaches are not good.
“The country is sitting waiting; businesses, the society, international investors are waiting to find out where you are taking this country, and week by week his position changes. We can’t move forward with confidence without a strong commitment to a position.”
Other issues
Regarding immigration reform, Bryan also said the previous administration [of which he was a part] had done the work to make foreign civil servants subject to term limits, but again, a lack of consensus in the previous administration prevented the policy change from moving forward.
“We did all the legwork. … They came in and found something ready to go and they executed it. That’s smart politics, but they cannot actually say they have done anything so far,” he said.
He added that the previous government had ordered the minimum wage report and a white paper on immigration reform, which he said the current administration was now acting on. “I haven’t seen anything yet that they have done themselves,” he said.
On the topic of erosion on the southern section of Seven Mile Beach, Bryan said, “I haven’t heard a word about it. It’s going to damage our stayover tourism product so badly. It is one of the most difficult things for stayover tourism right now.
“They are not going to be able to do anything now during the hurricane season and whatever they are going to do will probably take a year, so we are saying our number one asset in our tourism product is not going to be fixed for another two years. They have to say something; I am begging the minister for tourism and the government to come and give the solution.”
“I think they have the solution,” added Hew. “They just have to say if they are going to do it or not, or how they are going to do it.”
Asked if they thought the proposed solution would involve a public/private sector partnership, Bryan responded, “From what I am hearing, they think the landowners and the private sector should pay for it themselves, and I don’t agree with that because the country benefits greatly from the duties and revenues that come because of the beach.”
Sulliman asked Bryan why the beach renourishment project had not happened when he was tourism minister, Bryan answered that towards the end of the last administration, the minister responsible for the environment quit the government and there wasn’t enough time to move forward. “But we wanted to move ahead on it. We sat together and reached consensus,” he said.