Black Immigrant Daily News

Some Cayman companies must record information on their files about their clients to comply with national and international obligations associated with our anti-money laundering regime. This includes clients’ passports (to identify them), utility bills (to verify their address) and evidence of source of wealth (to ensure that client funds are not connected to terrorist financing, money laundering or other criminal activities). What is not talked about much, however, is how much effort these companies make to know their employees prior to hiring and on an ongoing basis.

Why checks should be done

For companies that are not doing pre-screening exercises for potential employees and are therefore not completing a detailed risk assessment to understand risks posed by a specific employee, they are leaving themselves open to unknown threats. Some these dangers (and checks that should be done) include the following:

Danger: Liability exposure for the company

By way of illustration, let’s say you’re running a hospital. You may want to ensure that the doctors performing procedures are properly qualified before you hire them. Otherwise, a patient could file a lawsuit claiming negligence and that an unqualified person performed procedures on them. This could result in hefty damages against the hospital.

In this case, examples of checks that you can do are direct verification with licensing bodies locally and overseas to ascertain that the person is properly licensed (and if revoked, reasons for revocation), direct verification with universities that the applicant claims to have attended (some applicants create fake certificates online), searches of court databases in the country where the applicant is originating and where they spent parts of their career (court searches are available online in Cayman for example and case lists are published by the courts weekly), name checks (including any aliases), obtain police clearance certificates (if available) from the applicant’s country of origin and locally.

(As a useful tool, guidance to obtain overseas criminal records for potential employees can be located on the following link: https://tinyurl.com/fwrjb9ns )

Danger: Security risk

If an adequate risk assessment is not made and a bad actor slips through and gets hired, this could pose a security risk for your company, depending on the seniority of the hire. For example, imagine a senior hire being given important passwords or access to restricted areas or confidential information. That person then shares the passwords with outsiders or allows unauthorized persons to enter restricted areas or breaches confidentiality. Any of these scenarios may result in employees or clients being put in harm’s way or the competition obtaining business secrets that can be used to gain an edge or destroy your business or a client.

Danger: Loss of reputation

The occurrence of any of the foregoing can lead to significant embarrassment for your corporation and a loss of trust and confidence in you and your business. Once your reputation is shot, it is hard to regain it or build back clients.

Screening should be ongoing

Once you complete this pre-screening and decide to hire someone, it is important that ongoing screening be completed.

British Standard 785 of the Centre for Protection of the National Infrastructure in the UK, for example, says that “The Standard sets the minimum screening period at three years, with no unverified gaps greater than 31 days” and “full screening should be completed no later than 12 weeks after employment has commenced (for checks totaling five years), or 16 weeks (where the checks are for longer than 5 years).”

Such ongoing screening may include monitoring of employee’s comments on social media (sharing non-public information publicly or negative remarks about the business or clients), drug testing (depending on the nature of the job) and checking criminal records for any new crimes committed.

Each company to decide its own approach

Notwithstanding the suggestions for pre-screening and ongoing screening, it is ultimately up to the company to decide if they will do the exercises and, if they do, how often and how they will be completed.

In addition, each company should disclose to potential and existing employees that such screening may be done. And regardless of the approach, the company must ensure that it remains in compliance with the Data Protection Act and the constitution when managing employee personal data during the screening process.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Tropical Disturbance_AL91 is now likely to become a Depression or Storm.

Given its location & potential track, a tropical cyclone alert is in effect.

Residents are urged to monitor this system closely & be prepared to implement their hurricane plans, if called upon to do so.

Tropical Weather Outlook

NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL

800 AM EDT Sun Aug 28 2022

For the North Atlantic…Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico:

Central Tropical Atlantic:

A broad and elongated area of low pressure is located over the  central tropical Atlantic Ocean.  Although the associated shower  and thunderstorm activity has increased somewhat since yesterday,

it currently lacks organization.

Environmental conditions are  expected to be generally conducive for gradual development, and a

tropical depression is likely to form later this week while moving  toward the west and then west-northwest at around 10 mph, toward the  waters east of the Leeward Islands.

* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…30 percent.

* Formation chance through 5 days…high…70 percent.

Central Atlantic:

A small low pressure system located about 600 miles east of Bermuda continues to produce occasional, disorganized shower activity.   Strong upper-level winds and dry air are expected to limit  significant development of this system while it meanders over the  central Atlantic during the next few days, and the low is likely to  dissipate by midweek.

* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…10 percent.

* Formation chance through 5 days…low…10 percent.

Northwestern Caribbean Sea:

A trough of low pressure could develop over the northwestern  Caribbean Sea during the middle part of this week.  Environmental  conditions could support some slow development of the system

thereafter while it moves generally west-northwestward over the  northwestern Caribbean Sea and toward the Yucatan Peninsula of

Mexico.

* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…near 0 percent.

* Formation chance through 5 days…low…20 percent.

Eastern Tropical Atlantic:

A tropical wave is forecast to move off the west coast of Africa  Monday or Monday night. Some gradual development of the system is  possible after that time while it moves generally westward across

the far eastern tropical Atlantic.

* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…near 0 percent.

* Formation chance through 5 days…low…20 percent.

Forecaster Berg

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Field workers attached to the Albion, Rose Hall and Port Mourant Sugar Estates downed tools for the past few days due to the lack of funds to pay them for clearing the canals.

Venting their concerns, the workers took to the streets on Friday during which they requested to be returned to clearing the canals which fall under the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority.

The 92 workers from the various estates were on Wednesday told that they would have to take up other jobs in cultivation since the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) will no longer be providing funds for the cleaning of canals.

One of the workers, Winston Dey, who has been working as a recleaner for the past 11 years at the Albion Estate, related that at some point in time, they will have to return to the canals where they are paid a day’s pay to clean 300 rods.

Dey along with others was reassigned to planting cane and weeding.

“It is very hard because we have to do hand weeding work, we have to chop bush and different kinds of work, so we are asking for them to give us back our recleaning work. Right now it is hard for us.”

Sugar workers at the protest

As recleaners, they clean canals to that the punts can traverse freely to transport fertilisers to the fields and also to transport canes to the factory.

“What they told us is that they don’t have money to pay us as recleaners. They did not say anything about when the recleaning work leaves back what will become of it,” Dey added.Another worker, Khemraj Jaikarran of the Rose Hall Estate recalled being told that he and the others would have to work as weeders.

“They say the decision came from higher management and they can’t do nothing about it. They came and reach the Agri Manager and the Human Resource Officer and told us that the only alternative work they have for us is to do weed and relief, cut cane, plant cane, and clean punts,” he stated while urging the relevant authorities to intervene.

However, General and Agriculture Workers Union (GAWU) Berbice representative, Harvey Tambron during the protest explained that he received a telephone call from the field officer at Rose Hall estate on Wednesday informing him that management had stopped the recleaners from performing their normal duties.

He said he met with workers and was told that there were no consultations on the issue. Tamdron further related that a superintendent of works was present at the meeting.

GAWU Berbice representative Harvey Tambron

“I asked the superintendent if it was true that the cleaners that recleaners were being given different work to do and he said yes. I asked him if there was any consultation or engagement with the workers and he said no. I called the Chief Industrial Relations Manager at the Georgetown office and he told me that there was an engagement. So I told him that I have the superintendent here and he said that there was no engagement.”

This publication understands that the NDIA had stopped refunding monies paid to recleaners to GuySuCo.

“This left us in shock because obviously management should have been able to know beforehand that the funds are being depleted and there will be no money to pay these workers,” Tambron said.

The Union had promised to make every effort to ensure that the issue is addressed in a timely manner. However, after several meetings between the Union and government officials, the Estate Manager on Thursday maintained that the situation remained the same.

“The estate needs to have the canals clean because we have the rompers go in there which service is the cane harvesters, we have a fertiliser, plants go in through the canals so the fertilising gang will be affected as well as the planting gang. So the canals are a very important part of the estate’s daily operations. If it’s every single day these canals are being used. Everything seems to be pointing to the Chief Executive Officer. Several managers told the workers that the decision came from the top, pointing to the Chief Executive Officer,” Tambron added.

Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha reportedly intervened and it was expected that the matter would have been resolved on Friday but nothing has been done.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

A new pump station is being constructed at Adventure to provide faster drainage to a section of the Black Bush Polder, Corentyne, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne).

The pump will also provide drainage for Cookrite Savannah, which is constantly being flooded thus affecting both animals and crops. In 2021, the Agriculture Ministry announced that $80 million would be spent on the construction of a drainage pump station at Adventure.

This, the Ministry had stated, would preserve approximately 5000 acres of rice cultivation by preventing flooding, and enhancing residents’ livelihoods.

Work has started on the new pump station at Adventure. Region Six Chairman David Armogan explained that as soon as the pump is completed, it should be able to avert any major flooding in the Lesbeholden area, which is one of the four polders making up Black Bush.

With the pump being installed at the head of Adventure, it will complement the koker that is already there.

“Once that pump is completed, we should be able to avert flooding, especially in the Lesbeholden area. Then you know we are putting down an additional pump through the Ministry of Agriculture at Number 43 Village and one at Eversham as well. The whole idea is not only Black Bush we are dealing with, we are dealing with the Cookrite Savannah as well. We have a lot of cattle there and we have rice. So, once these pumps become available, we can assist those people in the Cookrite Savannah by bringing water through Black Bush Polder and passing it through the drainage system there,” Armogan said.

There is no system to get water out of Cookrite Savannah other than through Black Bush Polder.

“We tried to do it through the 52 area but people are complaining that we are flooding them and so we had to revert to the old system of passing the water through Black Bush Polder,” the Regional Chairman added.

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