Rolston Anglin MP, Minister for Education and Training and Minister for Finance and Economic Development, called The Caymanian Journal (TCJ) "untruthful" in a live interview on 30 October and said it had misreported who negotiated the Government's CI$6.5 million purchase of the former Kiddiewinks preschool in West Bay.

The Minister was interviewed by Sandra Hill, owner and host of the online publisher Cayman Marl Road, in a livestream on 30 October. TCJ emailed him on 3 November with seven questions arising from his remarks, copied to his Ministry's communications manager. No response had been received at the time of publication.

What the Minister disputed

Mr Anglin MP said TCJ's report of 24 October had stated that his Ministry negotiated and paid the final price. "I am going to label them untruthful," he said. "They then go on in the article to say that the Ministry of Education negotiated and paid this final price. Absolute false. That's not how the government system works. The ministry responsible for lands, therefore the Lands and Survey Department, is who sets the criteria and executes the entire process of procuring all of the evaluations. They then enter into negotiations with the third party."

TCJ's report of 24 October said that "the Ministry said it negotiated the price down" from the sellers' asking price of CI$7 million. That sentence rested on the Ministry's own written answer of 21 October, which said "we approached the negotiations with a view that...we believe we have achieved good value-for-money with this acquisition". The Ministry's answer of 19 October said that "Lands and Survey arranged the valuations, led the negotiations and finalized the purchase", and the same report carried the Finance Ministry's statement of 18 September that civil servants in Lands and Survey, "not Ministers of Government", negotiate property purchases. On 2 November the Government's statement on the Attorney General's review of the Premier's position, which found the vendor was not a "connected person" under the Standards in Public Life Act, said that "the Chief Valuation Officer handled negotiations on behalf of the Ministry of Education" and that the vendors "were not willing to accept less than $6.5 million". On 4 November the Governor, Jane Owen, setting out the grounds for her finding that the Premier had not breached the Ministerial Code of Conduct, said she had considered that "negotiations were conducted by the Lands and Survey Department through the Chief Valuations Officer, following the standard process used for government property acquisitions". TCJ asked the Minister on 3 November whether, in the light of his Ministry's two written answers, he stood by the description of TCJ as untruthful.

He also rejected what he described as TCJ's suggestion that holding the Education and Finance portfolios created a conflict. "Again, lying to the public," he said. "The minister of finance has nothing to do with this acquisition." TCJ's report recorded that he holds both portfolios, carried the Finance Ministry's answer that the approvals were "institutional approvals, not a second personal approval of an Education purchase by the Minister in his Finance capacity" and did not "automatically create a conflict of interest or require recusal", and stated that no evidence had been put to TCJ, and none was suggested, that the Minister influenced the choice of site or the price. TCJ asked him which sentence of the report he regarded as the lie.

On the valuations, he said: "I'm so disappointed and surprised at how many people have jumped on a headline that says, 'Oh, well, we've overpaid because an evaluation,' and they picked one evaluation, by the way. One of four." He said TCJ had "grabbed one of the three independent valuations without recognising how our government system works". TCJ's report set out all three, JEC Property Consultants at CI$6,895,000, DDL Studio at CI$4,859,000 and BCQS at CI$5,000,000, and measured the price against each. The Minister confirmed the three figures on air and did not dispute any of them. "Myself and the ministry hid nothing," he said. "We gave them all the values. We answered the 33 initial questions." Later in the interview he said: "I say shame on the Caymanian Journal for taking what should be one of the things to celebrate for Cayman."

The Minister twice invited the public to judge the purchase: "the public will be the ultimate arbiter" on Forefront on 29 October and "You be the judge" on 30 October. TCJ publishes under the Editors' Code of Practice administered by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), Clause 1 of which prohibits the publication of inaccurate, misleading or distorted information and requires a significant inaccuracy to be corrected promptly and with due prominence.

At the opening of the East End Primary Heritage Village on 1 September, a TCJ editorial staffer asked him about a separate matter concerning the register of interests. He replied: "You're not the judge."

What the Minister disclosed

He said that "Lands and Survey's initial valuation, internal evaluation, came in right around $5.7 million". The price paid was CI$6.5 million.

He said the Government negotiated under a "special purchaser assumption". The RICS Valuation Global Standards, the valuation profession's Red Book, in force since 31 January 2025, define a special purchaser as "a particular buyer for whom a particular asset has a special value because of advantages arising from its ownership that would not be available to other buyers in a market", and special value as "an amount that reflects particular attributes of an asset that are only of value to a special purchaser". Mr Anglin MP listed the circumstances: an operational need for classroom space, the site's position beside Crown land, its proximity to Sir John A. Cumber Primary School, and the building's compliance with the requirements for registration as a school. "As Lands and Survey negotiates, they use all of that data as to how they negotiate and how flexible they'll be on price at that point," he said. The Premier's statement of 2 November said the vendors "were not willing to accept less than $6.5 million" and that the Government "considered this to provide value for money based on its location, availability, and comparable government construction projects so agreed the price".

On the Cayman Compass television programme Forefront on 29 October he said: "I felt extremely comfortable that at 6.5 million, using government's procurement processes, we would easily have paid somewhere around 9, 10, 11 million dollars before we finally delivered that, if we tried to build it." On Cayman Marl Road on 30 October he said that on 7 September he had asked the Ministry's senior project manager "what do you believe an absolute best case scenario the built system solution would have come in at", and that the answer was "just north of $6.6 million. $6,598,563." The Ministry told TCJ in writing on 19 October that the "cost for new build was not yet determined" when it chose to buy. On the Ministry's account, Cabinet approved the purchase by circulation on 29 June, the decision document was stamped on 3 July and the purchase agreement and transfer were completed on 20 July; the 7 September request therefore came after the purchase, which is consistent with the Ministry's written answer that the cost of a new build was not yet determined when it chose to buy. He also referred to a business case of 44 pages prepared within the Ministry. TCJ asked the Minister on 3 November whether there was a fourth valuation and, if so, whether it was the Lands and Survey internal figure he had referred to.

What the Minister said about the valuers

"To say there's a science, just this case alone ought to demonstrate to the public just how subjective it is," Mr Anglin MP said of the three valuations the Government had commissioned. Later he said the firms "are not called to value schools very often" and that "we don't have a lot of skills in that area", adding: "I'm not giving them an excuse or a pass." He attributed the gap between the DDL and JEC figures to "different assumptions on the basis that it was a school", including how covered walkways were valued, and described the three firms as "all credible, well-known, and recognised valuers".

The three firms were instructed by the Lands and Survey Department. JEC told TCJ on 29 October that it could not discuss a private client's report. TCJ emailed DDL Studio and BCQS on 30 October asking whether each was instructed to value the site as a school and what basis of value its instruction specified; neither had replied at the time of publication.

The Minister's case for the purchase

Mr Anglin MP stood by the purchase on both broadcasts. "We have gotten great value for money," he said on Forefront on 29 October. He said West Bay is again the second-largest district by population and the fastest growing, that Sir John A. Cumber Primary School needed a fourth reception stream, and that families with more than one child had been placed at Marie Martin Primary School for want of space. He said a Government build would have taken "easily a two and a half to three-year process" against children in the classrooms by August, that the site added autism spectrum disorder classrooms at a time when Lighthouse School is out of space and private placements cost "somewhere around 60 to 75,000 per student", and that the price was "almost 400,000 less than the highest valuation" and CI$500,000 below the sellers' asking price. "I will debate this with any other human being on the planet," he added. The Ministry of Education and Training announced on 6 November that the official opening of the Sir John A. Cumber Primary School Birch Tree Hill Campus, as the site is now named, will be held there at 6:00 pm on Monday 16 November and that the public is invited to attend.

TCJ's position

TCJ's report of 24 October reported the written answers of the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development as they were given, and identified each as the Ministry's. TCJ stands by the report as an accurate account of the information the two Ministries provided to it.

How this was reported

The Minister's remarks are quoted from the livestream of 30 October by the media outlet Cayman Marl Road and the Cayman Compass programme Forefront of 29 October. The Ministry of Education and Training's answers were given in writing on 19 and 21 October to 33 questions emailed on 16 September and a further set emailed on 19 October. The Finance Ministry answered on 17 and 18 September. The Premier's statement of 2 November was issued by the Cayman Islands Government and the Governor's further statement of 4 November by the Governor's Office. TCJ's seven questions to the Minister were emailed on 3 November, copied to the Ministry of Education and Training; the report will be updated if a response is received.