(CNS) The Cayman Islands Ministry of Tourism has admitted spending more than CI$55,000 of public cash advertising the cruise and cargo port project and engaging a public relations company to promote the controversial proposal, largely via social media. Following what is believed to be several freedom of information requests about how much government has spent pushing the port project in the face of mounting support for a referendum on the subject, the ministry admitted that since August, it has spent CI$25,292.50 on advertising the ‘Support our Tourism’ campaign up to the end of November.

In addition, the ministry is paying Fountainhead, a local communications company, CI$5,000 per month for six months to help run the campaign. Officials said the expenditure includes a series of full-page advertisements in both print newspapers, as well as radio ads on a variety of local stations.

CNS can confirm that no taxpayers’ cash was spent promoting the project on this website. The public expenditure did, however, include the cost of creating a Facebook page and a website specifically to promote the project. The ministry said this was to provide a “central repository for all of the reports and studies related to the project to date”.

The tourism ministry’s chief officer, Stran Bodden, claimed the rationale behind the campaign was to provide the public with information about the project and make accessing the reports easier.

“Since 2013 a tremendous amount of research, data and other relevant information regarding the cruise berthing project has been posted to the Ministry of Tourism’s website, but over time it has become harder to locate, in between other ministry related information,” he said. “We therefore wanted to provide the public with a more convenient, central location for retrieving the cruise berthing project information.”

He said that Fountainhead had been engaged by the ministry because it does not have the resources available to take on this public relations campaign to drum up support for this increasingly questionable proposed project.

“We have a single member of staff handling PR, communications and speech-writing for all of the ministry’s portfolios and felt it was prudent to provide additional support so that a high level of public engagement could be consistently maintained for the duration of the campaign,” Bodden said, adding that the ministry’s PR manager was also working on the campaign alongside her normal daily duties, with support from the PR company.

The PR campaign has caused particular controversy as some of the promotional material has been directly in opposition to the petition for a people-initiated referendum on the project, leading to concerns that public cash has been spent opposing the idea of a people’s vote.

On Wednesday, the minister denied on the floor of the Legislative Assembly that government had spent public money opposing the call for a referendum. However, the PR campaign that it has now admitted to funding has posted promotional material that suggested supporting the referendum was already a ‘no’ vote to the port, which was also re-posted by the premier.