UK Approves New Cayman Islands Budget: by Frances Garnett

On October 1st, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office approved the new budget of the UK territory the Cayman Islands. The Premier of the Cayman Islands, Alden McLaughlin, stated that a lot of effort was put into the new budget, and was successful because of the logical approach they took to create it. He also said that the UK approved it on it's first submission, showing the evidence of hard work out into the budget, since that had never happened before. The UK is continuing to closely monitor the public spending of all its overseas territories to ensure they won't have to bail out anyone. They are also prepared to offer the Caymanian government with any help they need to follow though with its commitments to the UK.

 

This was a pretty dry article, and was probably written to simply inform people about business matters. But, it caused me to do some thinking about the territory's status as an overseas territory of the UK. Based on my previous knowledge of the negative consequences and attitudes towards colonization, I was at first surprised and troubled by the fact that one country has to approve everything another place does, even though they are miles apart and that place is necessarily rightfully theirs. But, since they seemed to be collaborating well, I did some basic research on the Cayman Islands. I found out that it is rated highly on the Human Development Index, and that it has one of the highest GDPs in the world (which is great for such a small place). I also found out that it opted to stay a territory in the 60s. I guess that makes sense, since there must be advantages to being connected to the UK that maybe bring success. Of course, I'm in no place to judge whether this is good or bad, because I don't know the territory's history, but I still wonder if the concept of territories and colonization is a bit outdated and clinging to a former power and era. Again, I can't judge. But I think this article is important because it can make us think about things like this.

Source: http://www.caribbeannewsreview.com/index.php/caribbean1/business/1111-uk-oks-ppm-s-full-budget