Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.”
— William Shakespeare
In the lives of nations and of people, there exist singular moments of opportunity, where fortune presents two divergent paths toward very different futures, and where decisions made determine the difference between soaring success and foreseeable failure.
Now is such a moment for the Cayman Islands. It is high tide for our good ship, the time for our leaders to choose whether to follow the new course that has been charted for them, or to remain where we are and recede into global irrelevance.
The Ernst & Young report on reducing the size and scope of Cayman’s government is no ordinary document. To many (but certainly not all) of our civil servants, the report is an iron gauntlet come crashing at their feet – another challenge to their job security, to be met with passive or forceful resistance.
Their concerns are not unfounded. The EY report is a direct challenge to the entitlement mentality that has been carefully nurtured in the civil service for decades – close to lifetime tenure, generous salaries, a wealth of employment benefits not available to their private sector brethren.
The report tackles the task of reducing government costs in the only practical manner: by reducing the number of government entities and, by proxy, the number of civil servants on the public payroll.
If Cayman continues on its current trajectory of creeping government growth, coupled with unaddressable public liabilities, we will join the countries (think Greece, Spain and Italy) and municipalities (think Detroit, Chicago, and Stockton, California) that have devolved from glory to penury.
The EY report is a map, a series of directions on how Cayman can escape such a fate. The report is a good one and of considerable depth and acumen. Then again, the walls of Cabinet are papered over with good reports commissioned, paid for and ultimately neglected.
Enacting the recommendations in the EY report will require commitment, and, yes, real courage, from Cayman’s leaders.
Three such Caymanians – representing a unity of the civil service, private sector and elected class – appeared on the front page of Wednesday’s Cayman Compass in a story announcing the release of the report. They included Deputy Governor Franz Manderson (who has backing from Governor Helen Kilpatrick) and EY Managing Partner Dan Scott, whose firm deserves our thanks for producing an excellent document and giving the government far greater value for its money than the small fees the firm recouped.
But we single out one person, in particular, for special praise and recognition – Premier Alden McLaughlin.
Premier McLaughlin is the captain of the HMS Cayman. At the risk of jeopardizing his political career, the premier has staked his legacy on the faithful execution of this report.
This is Cayman’s moment of opportunity, and it is also Premier McLaughlin’s defining moment.
Because his cause is just and his path may be politically difficult, he needs, and deserves, the support of his countrymen.
He certainly will have ours.
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