I can only lament at the terrible way
our Government have gone about convincing all of us who supported the
proposed Cruise/Port dock that perhaps it is not a good idea.

The closed door mentality over some of
the simplest queries with unbelievable explanations, especially
concerning whether China Harbour were one of the bidders, the fact
that their Public Meeting they were forced to stage to tell us all
the true facts due to the increasing opposition to it and in fact –
didn't.

When it was disclosed after the meeting
that two of the cruise ship impartial 'experts' were in fact members
of the consortium to build it, the general public, like me, were
outraged.

Why on earth didn't the government
point that out at the meeting? Were they really trying to deceive us
or were they frightened their experts testimonies at the meeting
would have been derisively laughed at?

There had been cries of secret meetings
behind closed doors and 'hidden' agendas that I am not going to
stipulate.

When the Referendum date was set, it
gave weight to the opposers that government were trying to rush it
through before the additional 400 voters came on the Electoral Roll.

The very first, and one of the biggest
blunders was to get rid of Department of Environment Directer Gina
Ebanks-Petrie from the steering committee fro the cruise/port project
without a valid explanation.

Next they invoked the wrath of the
Cayman Islands National Trust by refusing to answer satisfactorily
their questions they had every right to answer.

During all this our Premier said
government employees need not vote as a vote not registered counted
automatically as a 'Yes' vote. Why the heck would he want to say
that? Then he boasted “it would take a miracle for the project not
to go ahead”. I remarked to him “Miracles do happen.” My
customary Christmas ecard never came last year.

All of this brought one of the leading
campaigners against the project, Shirley Roulstone, a member of the
Cruise Port Referendum campaign group, to go to the National Trust
and get their support to stop the Referendum until after a Judicial
Review that started today (22).

Finally government have produced the
latest Scoping Data that should have been produced well before the
Referendum Date was set.

Doesn't the premier and the members of
his cabinet realise that his people who voted for them are very, very
concerned at the impact to the environment the dredging is going to
do?

We have been led to believe this update
was peer reviewed by Royal HaskoningDHV and takes into consideration
the revised design of the proposed cruise berthing piers as well the
additional cargo project, which was not included in the initial EIA.
It was produced by Baird, the company that carried out the original
environmental impact assessment in 2015 on an entirely different
design to the one now proposed.

Gina Ebanks-Petrie confirmed that she
has received a copy of the document.

Now we have entered the chicken or the
egg situation. Government don't want to spend anymore on the project
until the referendum question is decided. The opposers and the
National Trust want more work executed including geo-technical work
before the Referendum.

If the premier is so confident it will
take a miracle to stop it why is he so worried – NOW!

It sadly is because of all the above
that this Government have themselves to blame for the referendum
delay.