Governments in the Cayman Islands have a reputation of
hiring outside consultants and paying them vast amounts of money for their
conclusions and recommendations on a variety of issues.
More often than not, those expensive reports are shelved in
some government dark hole and quickly forgotten.
The well-paid consultants return to their own countries with
their wallets bulging and sporting a nice tropical island suntan.
We can only assume that the sitting government in 2010
didn’t like all the suggestions made by independent commissioners James C.
Miller III and David Shaw in their recommendations to help the Cayman Islands
get its finances in order.
The report, which cost the territory $160,000, came about
after the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office concluded that the
Cayman government was on an unsustainable path. Our government had to agree to
let Mr. Miller and Mr. Shaw look over its finances in order to secure the
ability to raise more debt. In September 2011, then-Premier McKeeva Bush
reported that six of the 12 recommendations had been acted on.
The first recommendation was not to impose direct taxation,
which hasn’t been done although Mr. Bush did try to muscle through an expat tax
last year. Thankfully, he withdrew the proposal after two weeks of rancourous
debate that threatened to divide the territory even more.
The second was to privatise government-owned assets like the
Turtle Farm and water company. Lip service was paid, but so far there have been
no sales.
Other recommendations that Mr. Bush said government had
acted on included making significant reductions in operating expenses, complete
audits of all government agencies and attracting outside investment.
It’s been three years since the Miller-Shaw report and we
still have budget problems with a civil service that has grown into something
too large. What Mr. Miller and Mr. Shaw wanted the government to do was stop
spending, plain and simple. Government doesn’t need to raise more revenues; it
needs to be a good steward of the money we put in its coffers.
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Solutions to problems in the discussion are as rare as hen’s teeth but all candidates will get on the news over the road closure and the Boddentown dump.