What has the PPM achieved?
An insider writes: I cannot state any of the following publicly — you can guess why — but I feel compelled to share these thoughts with all eligible voters, be they generational Caymanians or status holders. I listened attentively to Radio Cayman on Saturday night. All of those people were in Cabinet the last four (some eight) years. What did they accomplish? Let us see:
During the lockdown, our population dropped by approximately 3,500 people. Let us suppose that 2,000 of those were on work permits. Did Cabinet take the opportunity to put mechanisms in place to ensure that at least 80% of those jobs were filled by qualified Caymanians before work permit holders could return? In four years, did they seek to address the HSA’s history of malpractice and the rate of inaccurate diagnoses? Did they address the urgently needed reform to the health insurance, immigration and planning laws?
We pay the salaries of the lawyers that the last Cabinet used to fight the Cruise Port Referendum group and appeal the chief justice’s ruling on the Civil Partnership Law, a law that basically aligned our Constitution to the rule of Law. They approved developments without the approval of constituents and used the money we pay to fight us in court. They used our money to pay for the glossy pamphlet to tout the pier project.
We paid their salaries and they tried to stick us with a debt that our children and their children and grandchildren would have had to pay. Yet we will have to pay them three months salary if they do not get re-elected. Am I the only one that sees how wrong that is?! If they choose to run again and fail, well! That is the result of their failure the past four (for some it’s eight) years. We, the people, should not have to pay for that.
They passed a law saying that ALL jobs in our islands had to be listed with WORC so that Caymanians had 15 days to apply for them. Well, I visited the WORC website, and they list close to 600 jobs, and yet Caymanians are not filling them. What is wrong?
Our Constitution dictates that in times of pandemic, government must follow the recommendations of the chief medical officer, the commissioner of police, and the governor, who basically must follow whatever protocol the Foreign Office adopts. The Constitution puts them in charge so that no matter which party is in power, the citizens are kept safe. In other words, this was not a “Premier and PPM” achievement. It was a Constitutional achievement.
In eight years, people went from being homeowners with good paying jobs to making ends meet. Basically, the middle class continues to shrink year on year, which means that where only 22% of our high school graduates get to pursue tertiary education today, that percent is very likely to drop to 20% or lower.
We lost CITN, even though Mr Merren stated publicly during a PAC meeting that the other companies were not paying him for including CITN in their packages. He stated that OfReg was aware of this but was not forcing the other companies to pay him and therefore he would have to close the TV station in a year or two. We had a right to CITN, in the context of free, impartial, and accurate information. The past Cabinet did nothing to protect that right and the people lost CITN.
I give them kudos for activating the free shuttle (although it appears to me that they are mostly driving around empty); for arranging to get a laptop for public school students (the Eastern Districts still have connectivity challenges). I give the Public Accounts Committee kudos for exposing the gross mismanagement of public funds (though I don’t see anyone arrested yet).
In closing, please do your elector homework. Pay attention to ALL the aspiring candidates, not just the ones in your district, because these are the people who will sit in Cabinet and make decisions for the good or bad of this country for the next four years. Our Year 7s today will either graduate from Sixth Form with honors or continue coming out of CIFEC, which automatically places them at the bottom of the heap when applying for jobs.
Let us choose people who have achieved something while we were not paying their salary; people who will not be afraid to grab the bull by the horns and make the hard decisions necessary to ensure we thrive, not just survive. Do not doubt it, if we choose the wrong people on April 14th, there will be dire consequences.
Category: Polls, Viewpoints & Analysis, Viewpoint & Analysis
