Despite being a member of the Legislative Assembly for many years, including being the premier, and not implementing any policy for doing away with the rollover policy, McKeeva Bush at his United Democratic Party last week (12) now says it should end.

The current rollover policy in existence in the Cayman Islands where foreign workers on work permits must leave after seven years, should be abandoned he said. “The policy was damaging the islands’ economy and handing an advantage to competitors in other jurisdictions.”

Naming Bermuda as one of these destinations he said we should follow their lead because its (rollover) misapplication has “created unemployment and hardship for our people.”

“As most of you have read,” Bush went on, “Bermuda has abandoned its rollover policy and introduced alternative policies. We have no time to waste and failure to address this issue will continue to affect our livelihood in an increasingly negative manner.

“You might say more people, more permits, less jobs. But when companies in the financial industry pull up their socks and leave then our secretaries, our clerks, our young Caymanian girls that work in those industries lose their job.

“With our poor immigration policies we succeeded in getting viable economic activity in other people’s countries.  We need to change that situation. It needs to be reversed immediately. Our immigration policies must be attractive to investors while at the same time we ensure Caymanians and our young people are given priority for available positions. This is not rocket science. Immigration must be and can be beneficial to all.”

He, of course, put the blame on the previous People’s Progressive Movement government saying they had been responsible for increasing regulation and red tape while in power.

He forgot to mention it was his own government that had introduced the rollover policy just before they were ousted from power in 2005.