EDITORIAL - Remove visa requirement for Cayman

Last week's formal announcement by the premier of the Cayman Islands, Mr McKeeva Bush, that his country would ease its visa restrictions on Jamaicans is a move in the right direction that Kingston should encourage by reciprocating with even more than the Caymanians have offered.

In other words, we suggest to the Golding administration that Jamaica puts pride and hubris aside and remove the visa requirement for Caymanians travelling to the island.

If Mr Golding is concerned about the likely reaction of those Jamaicans whose pride will be bruised and needs a selling point for such a decision, he can place it in the context of the spirit of cooperation after last week's Northern Caribbean summit in George Town and the capacity of his administration to grasp the bigger picture.

Indeed, he can rightly claim that the situation of the last five years has been of little value to Jamaica, and that it is time to move to a new phase of relationship between the two countries.

In 2005, complaining about an influx of our nationals who came to their country and misbehaved, the Cayman Islands, British overseas dependency, demanded that Jamaicans obtain visas before entry.

The decision rankled. After all, the Cayman Islands, before our own Independence, used to be administered from Jamaica. Not surprisingly, Kingston similarly demanded visas of Caymanians.

One point that we sadly have to admit is that while, over the last 40 years, Jamaica's economy has largely stagnated and our country has grown socially dysfunctional, the Cayman Islands, one of the world's premier offshore financial centres, prospered. Indeed, more Jamaicans have sought to go to the Cayman Islands than vice versa. By most estimates, about 8,000 Jamaicans reside in the Cayman Islands, which would be nearly a fifth of its population. That would be the equivalent of around 650,000 Caymanians living in Jamaica.

Those exempted

Last week, as he spoke at a conference on Northern Caribbean cooperation organised by the Jamaica National Building Society, Premier Bush said Jamaicans who already hold visas for entry into the US, Britain and Canada would be exempt from the requirement for the Cayman Islands.

A new short-stay business visa, removing the need for temporary work permits, would also be introduced.

Some will suggest that we do the same. But as Mr Golding said at that conference, the Caribbean has spent too much competing with each other rather than cooperating to compete with the rest of the world.

He is right. Having grasped this big picture, and given Jamaica's political leadership of the English-speaking Caribbean, Mr Golding can coax the Caymanians along this route. Removing the visa requirements would be a start that the Caymanians, in time, will follow.

After all, as Mr Bush said, the change to the Caymanian visa regime is to improve his country's business environment. He might have to move a bit more slowly than us, for in a small place he has a much bigger face to save.

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