Hi everyone,
Per the title. I really want to be part of a band for this carnival. Friends have dropped out last minute. I am tempted to go by myself. However I am worried it will be uncomfortable going without knowing anyone. Does anyone have any thoughts.
I appreciate the logistics are difficult this late, but still workable.
Any insight much appreciated.
Best
Cayman is home to some of the world’s highest-paid accountants and auditors. Senior partners at the top of the largest firms can earn millions of dollars per year. Yet that layer of well-paid partners is supported by a foundation of audit staff and tax professionals on relatively low salaries.
The industry has always operated on this pyramid model, with the idea being that the eventual rewards justify the hard early years. An “up or out” philosophy means the ranks thin as you move up the pyramid. But now, with audit consultancies coming under pressure from AI, the model is changing and that could have significant implications for Cayman.
One way that large audit and consultancy firms in Cayman control costs is by hiring entry-level staff from lower-income countries. Recent WORC data shows a significant increase in work-permit holders from India, Africa and the Philippines, many of whom work in professional services firms.
“They like to hire staff from low-income countries that are far away from Cayman,” said a mid-level Cayman-based professional for one of the Big Four – the collective name given to Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC.
The composition of Cayman’s auditors has changed over time said Nick Joseph, founder of immigration consultancy, Reside Cayman. “In the beginning, during the 1970s and 1980s almost all accountants in private practice were Caymanian or British. By the 1990s the British started to be replaced by Canadians and others from around this region.”
“By the 2000s the Canadians dominated the industry. By the 2010s large numbers in [relative terms] of South Africans joined the profession. By the early 2020s recruitment expanded to include significant numbers of Indians and Kenyans.”
“Now recruitment seems to have expanded across East Africa with Zimbabweans and Tanzanians amongst those I have come across – together with growing numbers of Filipinos and Nepalese,” said Joseph. “It is simple economics. The labour is often cheaper than Caymanian or British counterparts.”
The mid-level source, who wanted to remain anonymous to protect his career prospects, said entry level staff at the auditors are earning around $55,000 per year. “When you consider they will be working up to 80-hour weeks during busy season, it’s not a good salary on a per-hour basis.”
The Compass also spoke to a former partner at one of the large audit and consultancy firms based on the islands. “I benefited from the situation, but I always knew it was unfair. If there are cuts to be made, the partners obviously want that to happen lower down in the pyramid and that means squeezing the entry-level staff.”
The bedrock of the audit industry in Cayman is legislation that states that Cayman-registered funds and companies can only be audited by firms based in the jurisdiction. It guarantees revenues for the audit firms, which then focus on delivering the audit for the lowest possible cost.
“Often, the bulk of the work on these audits is carried out by global delivery centres [offshore hubs in low-income jurisdictions] and then the final report is signed off by a partner based in Cayman,” said the mid-level source.
None of the above is news to people who work in the industry. But what’s changing now is that AI is putting extra pressure on profit margins. In one infamous example, the Financial Times reported that KPMG told its own auditor, Grant Thornton UK, to reduce the cost of completing its monthly accounts because AI made it cheaper to do the work.
In recent years, there have been high-profile mistakes, where well-known audit firms have published AI-generated, error-strewn reports. Clients – who realise the Big Four are using AI to produce some elements of reports – expect to pay lower fees.
“If your business model is based on charging people high hourly rates for your knowledge, and that information is now democratised and more readily available to everyone due to the adoption of AI, your operating model is under threat,” said the former partner. The historic Big 4 model of “time and materials” billing is being disrupted by “value-based” pricing for services where critical thinking is required, he said.
In March the Financial Times reported that KPMG was “cutting close to 600 UK jobs”, while in 2025 it reported that 175 junior auditors were made redundant from PwC in the UK last year.
“It’s not that AI will destroy the Big Four, but it will drastically change their business and revenue models,” said the mid-level source. Indeed, Financial Times analysis found that in 2025 the Big Four advertised more AI specialist roles than auditor jobs.
Most at risk are the junior and mid-level staff, as AI can now complete or automate many of those basic tasks, especially around market research, data aggregation, data modeling, sampling, document review, testing and presentation. Starting salaries for consultants at the Big Four have not increased since 2022, reports the Financial Times.
All of the professionals interviewed for this story believed that the coming changes would likely mean fewer junior audit staff would be hired in Cayman in the future. The pressure on entry-level roles could also make it more difficult for Caymanians to enter the field.
None of the audit professionals that the Compass spoke to for this story were willing to go on record, citing potential career impacts in a small market. The Compass also reached out to the Big Four, but PwC declined to comment, while Deloitte, KPMG and EY were yet to respond by the time of going to print.
(CMR) Residents of the Cayman Islands are raising alarm after a man was spotted exposing himself and fondling his genitals at a popular public beach Monday morning, the latest in a string of reported incidents dating back to at least December of last year. Despite multiple police reports, a formal complaint to the Office of the Ombudsman, and the case being formally closed just weeks ago, the man remains unidentified and at large.
The most recent incident occurred around 7:20 a.m. Monday at the bottom of the stairs at Jack's Bar, where a woman encountered the man with his penis exposed. In a post to the Facebook group Women in Cayman, she described confronting him directly.
“I asked what he was doing and he said he didn't realise I was there,” she wrote. “He said he was picking sand off it when in fact he looked like he was admiring it. I said I don't care if I was or wasn't, this is wrong in every shape and form.”
The post quickly drew dozens of comments from women who said they recognised the man from prior incidents, and that police had already been made aware of his behaviour months earlier.
Community member Lynne commented that she had encountered the same individual outside her home on the evening of December 13, 2025, and immediately called 911. She said police took 35 minutes to respond, and when PC Brian Marshall finally arrived, she felt he was dismissive of the seriousness of what had occurred. Among the questions she said he posed were whether she frequented bars and whether she was dating someone who had a wife or girlfriend.
In the weeks that followed, Lynne said she had difficulty reaching PC Marshall, and when she did speak to him on December 23rd, the conversation deteriorated. “The officer Marshall was the one that called me a bully,” she told CMR. She was subsequently required to attend the police station to give a formal statement, an experience she described as deeply distressing. “I had to go down to the police station on Christmas Eve to give my statement,” she said.
Lynne filed a formal complaint against PC Marshall with the RCIPS Professional Standards Unit on December 31, 2025, which was subsequently reviewed by the Office of the Ombudsman. While she praised the Ombudsman's handling of her matter, she remained frustrated with the broader police response. “The Ombudsman office was great,” she told CMR, “but the police were awful.”
The Ombudsman's office reviewed the complaint, including body worn camera footage and interviews with both PC Marshall and Police Sergeant Jonathan Kern. It ultimately ruled it could not investigate the broader concerns about the handling of the criminal investigation itself, including the lack of timely follow-up and absence of basic investigative steps, and directed Lynne to raise those concerns with Assistant Commissioner of Police Robert Atkin.
Then, on April 22, 2026, just weeks before Monday's incident, Acting Inspector Jonathan Kern wrote to Lynne informing her that the investigation was being recommended for closure. Despite efforts including area searches, circulation of the photograph she had provided, intelligence analysis, checks with the RCIPS offender management unit and checks with partner agencies, police said they had been unable to positively identify a suspect. “Without a suspect identified we are unable to progress the matter any further and this is the reason for the closure,” Inspector Kern wrote.
Within weeks of that letter, the same man allegedly resurfaced at a public beach and exposed himself again, this time in front of multiple witnesses.
“It makes me so sad, it's not just me,” Lynne told CMR. “They do so little, but if they're not catching bank robbers, what do I expect.”
Perhaps the most disturbing account involves a local mother whose teenage daughter and younger son were allegedly approached by the same man in March, while she had briefly stepped away from the beach.
“I left her and R there for 20 minutes to run home and pick up some stuff I forgot,” the mother told CMR. “When I got back, that was the fiasco.”
The incident is said to have taken place on a Saturday, either March 7th or 14th, at the West Bay public beach near old Alfresco, locally known as Jerry Springer Beach. The confrontation escalated rapidly, with at least one bystander pulling out a machete and threatening the man before he fled the scene.
Witnesses say the man jumped into what appeared to be a silver or gray mobile car wash vehicle and sped away before he could be stopped. That incident was also reported to police. Officers never showed up.
“The police are just as bad as him,” the mother said. “We haven't been back there since.”
Multiple community members believe the man may be Jamaican, based on accounts from those who confronted him during the March incident. Some have called for WORC to be notified immediately if he is found to hold a work permit, noting that escalating behaviour of this nature frequently precedes more serious sexual offences.
“The more reports they have, the harder it will be to ignore,” one commenter wrote on the Women in Cayman post. “Something like this will only escalate and very likely end up with sexual assault victims,” another warned.
RCIPS has been tagged directly on social media by multiple community members. Cayman Marl Road has reached out to RCIPS for comment and will update this story upon response.
If you have information about this individual or have experienced a similar incident, contact RCIPS at 911 or the tip line at 949-7777.
My husband and I just visited Grand Cayman for the first time so excited to have a relaxing trip and that was quickly ruined for us.
As soon as we landed we went through customs no problem and as we were about to leave the airport there was another stop where a man was asking us questions and he asked if we took any prescriptions medications, which I felt was a very odd question to ask, to which i replied yes and he asked what we were on and i stated we were both on anxiety medication. he then redirected us to a woman who continued to search all 6 of our bags. After letting her know which of our bags held our medications she ignored me and went to all the other bags and grabbed my husbands backpack first. They found a half empty bottle of EXPIRED CBD gummies that my husband didn't even know where in his bag. they continued to search all our other bags and the woman was giving me a hard time because all my medication were in daily containers and I didn't have the prescriptions bottles. Even having my husband pull up his medication history on his phone because they didn't see his name on one of the bottles
We let them know that CBD does not contain any THC, it even stated it on the bottle that they didn't contain any THC. They didn't care and proceeded to caution my husband and take him out of the airport in handcuffs to the detention center and leave me alone with all of our luggage in another country.
I then had to navigate getting a car and finding the address where they were keeping my husband ALONE and had to wait 2 hours until they released him. They held on to his passport when they released him and gave him a return date which was after our flight to leave was scheduled. We had to spend the whole week of our vacation calling the embassy and lawyers and trying to get an answer as to when we would be able to get his passport back. We didn't get an answer until they day before we were supposed to leave and had to change our flights twice. After lawyer fees, a $1200 fine and the cost to change our flight we are out almost $4,000
I've visited a lot of different countries and normal protocol would be to take them away and discard them or even fine him at that time. Dragging this whole thing out for a week and forcing people to rescheduled flights home is a SCAM. It is absolute extortion of tourists and it turns people away from visiting the island. There were at least 3 other American tourists who were in court with us. I did a lot of research before traveling to Grand Cayman to make sure it was safe, food was good, ETC. & I never came across any posts about this and wanted to put a warning out there.
Can anybody shed a light on membership cost and what is included? Are there classes included with membership? Not much information online! Thank you
(CNS): Deputy Opposition Leader Kenneth Bryan has written to Premier André Ebanks asking for information on surveillance measures and protocols in place to monitor for hantavirus within our borders and at all points of entry. There are global concerns that dozens of people who disembarked from the cruise ship MV Hondius before the outbreak on board was detected could be infected.
The ship is currently in the Atlantic off the coast of West Africa and is expected to arrive in the Canary Islands on 10 May. Health officials around the world are trying to track all passengers who disembarked on the island of St Helena on 24 April.
The Caribbean Public Health Agency has said the risk to the Caribbean remains low, but it is advising all member states to remain vigilant, review and strengthen vessel surveillance systems as well as public health protocols at ports of entry.
The World Health Organization has said the outbreak is not the start of a pandemic, as seen with Covid-19, because hantavirus spreads only through “close, intimate contact”. Five cases of hantavirus on the cruise ship have been confirmed, including three deaths, and there are now suspected cases in several countries.
In his letter, Bryan asked the premier to provide “clear and immediate assurances to the public regarding our islands’ preparedness”. He said the people of the Cayman Islands deserve to know that the “government is taking every necessary precaution to safeguard their health and well-being”.
He asked how the government is preparing to respond to any potential cases and what information it plans to disseminate about the risks and preventive measures associated with hantavirus.
See the full text of Bryan’s letter below.
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Former financial services industry fund administrator and football executive Canover Watson has had his Caymanian status revoked because of his criminal conviction.
The revocation of his status was revealed in a Grand Court judgment by Justice Marlene Carter, who refused Watson’s application for a judicial review to overturn a decision by the Immigration Appeals Tribunal.
Watson is serving a seven-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2022 of committing fraud and money laundering while serving as an official at the Cayman Islands Football Association. He had earlier been convicted, and sentenced to seven years in prison, for a different fraud case, involving a scheme that skimmed hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Health Services Authority’s CarePay patient swipe-card contract.
The Cayman Status and Permanent Residency Board had informed Watson in August 2019 that it intended to revoke his right to be Caymanian as a result of his conviction. Watson appealed that decision to the Immigration Appeals Tribunal, which, on 29 Oct. 2024, dismissed his appeal and advised him that he had a further right to appeal, on a point of law, to the Grand Court within 28 days.
The Compass understands Watson, who was born in Jamaica, moved to Cayman when he was 6 years old, and holds Cayman and British passports.
Carter, in outlining the background to Watson’s application, noted that on 21 Aug. 2025, 10 months after the tribunal had refused his appeal, Watson’s attorney had written to the tribunal, asking that its decision “be declared a nullity”.
On 7 Nov. 2025, the tribunal responded that it had “neither a legal basis nor any power under the [Immigration (Transition) Act] to do a reconsideration” and pointing out that the deadline to apply for an appeal had been 26 Nov. 2024, it dismissed Watson’s request.
Then, on 7 Feb. this year, Watson filed his application for judicial review, challenging the tribunal’s refusal to reconsider his case.
One of the grounds of his application was that the Immigration Appeals Tribunal had failed to disclose that the Office of the Director of Prosecutions had provided what Watson described as “speculative and factually incorrect advice” and did not allow him an opportunity to respond.
Under immigration legislation, the tribunal is empowered to revoke an individual’s right to be Caymanian, or Caymanian status, if that person has been convicted of a criminal offence that has resulted in a prison sentence of 12 months or more, and if the person’s rights of appeal have been exhausted.
Watson argued that at the time the tribunal made its decision, he had not yet exhausted all his avenues of appeal.
In his submission to the court, he said he was incarcerated at the time of the tribunal’s ruling and did not have access to funding or legal representation. He noted that, on 8 Nov. 2024, he received the Court of Appeal’s judgment dismissing his appeal against conviction in the football fraud case, which triggered a 56-day deadline – until 3 Jan. 2025 – to apply to the Privy Council for a final appeal.
Three days later, on 11 Nov., he said, he received notice of the Immigration Appeals Tribunal’s decision, which was dated 29 Oct. 2024.
Explaining his delay in appealing the tribunal’s ruling, Watson said, “As a lay person, without funding and with limited access while incarcerated, my efforts during that period were necessarily focused on preparing and pursuing the Privy Council application, which was time-critical.”
He added that once he could reasonably turn his attention to the tribunal matter, he sought assistance from his lawyers in January 2025.
But, the judge noted in her judgment, a letter seeking reconsideration by the tribunal was not sent until 21 Aug. 2025, some eight months later, which Carter described as an “unexplained delay”.
In a letter to the court, the Attorney General’s Chamber noted that Watson’s application for leave to apply for a judicial review challenged the revocation of his Caymanian status, not the tribunal’s dismissal of the reconsideration request.
Carter said Watson had failed to avail of the statutory remedy provided by the immigration legislation before pursuing a judicial review, which she was a “remedy of last resort”.
Dismissing his leave to appeal, she said, “The facts of this case do not support there being any special circumstances to warrant a departure from this principle. The reasons advanced by the Applicant for not pursuing the statutory appeal are not persuasive.
“In the absence of such circumstances, leave for judicial review should not be granted.”