In my Political Manifesto of 2009, titled ’Preserving Our Common Sense Democracy’, I wrote the following: It is hard to believe that the present government(PPM) was elected because many believed that the PPM would operate a fiscally responsible administration, after praising themselves as a government the people could trust. The PPM began its tenure by launching one investigation after another until they ended up protesting against the money ($6.1M) they were required to spend to investigate alleged misconduct and corruption within the police service and the judiciary. On March 23rd, before the close of parliament the PPM government, which had previously taken money from education to build roads took money again from education this time to pay for additional government spending. Some $10.2 million was taken away from the Ministry of Education, including funds for the improvement at the George Town Primary school.”
It is said that a fool and his money never last long. But the PPM government cannot be said to have been made up of fools; nevertheless they threw away every good opportunity to make sure we had reserves in our treasury. Instead of saving, the PPM covered roads with the wealth and financial security of our nation. The PPM’s five different ministers each did their own thing, believing that their re-election depended upon building big projects and avoiding little people. People of George Town, in 2000, I made a Private Member’s Motion asking that the government remove duties from food items imported into these Islands. Rather than the Government of Mr. Tibbetts’ policing to see that these benefits were passed on by the merchants to you the people, Mr. Tibbetts’s government of 2000 to 2001, replaced the duties that I was successful in having removed. And just before closing Parliament to ask you again for your trust, Mr. Tibbetts reduced duties on land purchased in the Seven Mile Beach areas, as well as imported construction materials, but said nothing about the duties on the food you and I need to feed our children and elderly.
The Cayman Islands are very small in size and our survival has literally depended on our ability to provide people from other jurisdictions with leisure and services. But there has been few if any published academic studies on our very unique and fragile economy, so no one has a picture of the serious consequences that this phase of the global meltdown will have on our economic and social lifestyles.
I hope for the best and fear the worst; however, whatever happens we are in for very rough times and the solution will not be in sending home our guest population. Caymanian workers must be protected but we should have already learnt some lessons from the roll-over policy of the PPM government. It is elementary to me that a decrease in population means fewer needs and fewer needs results in fewer demands for food, apartments and other commodities. In the months and years to come we must finds ways of expanding our economy without necessarily increasing or decreasing the size of our population.
It is time therefore, to get back to the ideas of the past where the diversification of the economy was prominent. A caring society where all are given the chance of finding a job and providing their family with food and shelter without selling drugs or robbing must again become the goal of our political leadership. We can no longer be guided by the idea that government should invest millions in schools, roads, the promotion of tourism and the financial service industry but nothing in new tourism concepts and agricultural and manufacturing strategies that will create new opportunities for Caymanians. The Cayman business sectors have been for too long too narrowly defined and as a result excludes too many Caymanians and prevents the further growth of our middle class.
There were so many young Caymanians without meaningful employment before the economic crisis and there is even more today and many more tomorrow; while small local entrepreneurs are taxed to the max. And every single individual who calls these Islands home must now, if they never did before, concentrate on the very difficult task of economic and social integration of the hordes of youngsters standing on the crossroad of time. Even if we don’t care for their ways and their plight we should care about the results their further alienation and frustration will have on our physically restricted society. Let us begin to care for we know the consequences to ourselves if we do not care and do nothing. I demonstrated caring leadership in the past and I again pledge caring leadership for these serious times. Leadership that will fight to diversify our economy while growing our middle class by training our youth to become stakeholders in their tomorrow.
Frank McField
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