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| Dr Frank McField |
By Tad Stoner
Calling for socialised medicine, an end to the rollover policy, public subsidies for agriculture and immediate outreach to local youth, George Town independent candidate Dr Frank McField released his manifesto late last week.
He also called for an end to pension payments for foreign employees of small locally owned businesses, the recruitment of more Caymanians into both the police force and the ranks of teachers, and the diversification of Cayman’s tourism product to embrace growing markets in South America, Europe and China.
“At this particular moment, I am concentrating on social stability issues and the neglect of the social system,” Dr McField, who holds a PhD in philosophy from Germany’s University of Bremen, told Cayman Net News.
“It is because of a combination of social degeneration and crime,” he said. “It is not just poverty, not just a material poverty, but a philosophical poverty. There is a moral confusion and an inability to choose a value system.”
At 23 pages, the slick 9’x6’ booklet, titled “Preserving Our Common Sense Democracy: The 2009 Political Manifesto of McField, Dr Frank Swarres”, offers a thoughtful critique of the Caymanian social and political system, and calls for a series of changes.
Written during the course of a month, “one topic at a time”, Dr McField said, the manifesto builds on his previous 1996 platform called “Towards a Common Sense Democracy” that the candidate authored for his initial independent run for office.
In this “sequel”, Dr McField writes of the slow erosion of social values and his fears for the consequences, citing the October murder of community activist and women’s leader Estella Scott-Roberts as a touchstone.
“There can be no excuse for this crime even if it had taken place in the most backward and underdeveloped nation on this planet and we must now strive to understand this disconnect which now exists in our society,” he writes, blaming an increasing tendency to limit the “needs of many young people to discover and be accepted by a community of their peers” by arming police, closing nightclubs and banning music.
To “reform this culture of violence,” he says, “I hope the police will begin to analyse their weaknesses and strive for correction,” one of them being the “recruitment, training and retaining” of Caymanians in the Royal Cayman Islands Police, helping re-establish a sense of connection within communities.
Dr McField calls for a similar effort to recruit local teachers, citing the “social breakdown and violence” attributable, he says, “to the inability of the schooling and policing systems to function as social-control agencies.” Cayman should have a Teachers Training College, he says, and back-to-school programmes for adults.
He proposes that the Cayman Islands Hospital “be given a social mandate to deliver socialised medicine to the Caymanian people,” while suggesting that “political appointments of decision makers over heath workers are not healthy management.
“The Government is already providing free medical treatment to Caymanian children, civil servants, pensioners, indigents, prisoners, seamen and their widows. We may as well go all the way and preserve at least in the public medical sector some aspect of Caymanian traditional egalitarianism,” he writes.
Dr McField does not say, however, how we would pay for his proposals. Already, government spends $64 million annually, more than 10 percent of the budget, on medical care.
Calling for creation of a technical and vocational training school, Dr McField calls for creation of wider job opportunities. “There were so many young Caymanians without meaningful employment before the economic crisis, and there are even more today and many more for tomorrow,” he writes.
“Government must invest in new tourism concepts and agricultural and manufacturing strategies.
“The Cayman business section has been for too long too narrowly defined and as a result excludes too many Caymanians and prevents the further growth of our middle class,” he says.
At the same time, though, acknowledging the burden on small-business owners of providing health and pension benefits for foreigners who “are rolled over after seven years”, he says, “I can no longer support pension payments for foreign employees.”
Unlike others among the independents, however, Dr McField does not blame expatriates for the problem, pointing out that immigrants contribute to demand for goods and services and indirectly generate investment in schools, healthcare, roads and other infrastructure, frequently creating local jobs.
Small businesses, he says, suffer from the policy, whereby expatriates are forced to leave after seven years residence, as do white collar industries such as financial services.
“Every time a company loses a trusted employee, they also lose a certain amount of confidence clients may have had in their services. In many cases clients follow their trusted advisers to whatever jurisdiction they are next employed,” Dr McField writes.
“We must examine how careers of Cayman ‘knowledge workers’ can be protected without driving business overseas.”
Finally, he writes, diversification of the economy is vital. The tourist industry should explore new markets in Europe, South America and China, while government extends the Owen Roberts Airport runway and rekindles the “Go East” programme, spreading tourism revenues throughout the Island.
Agricultural subsidies should be used to encourage small gardens and provision grounds for fruits and vegetables, and for raising pork, poultry and fish, while the Cayman Islands Development Bank should become a source of low-finance lending to help create new industries.
“The Immigration Department needs to stay shy of labour politics and of deciding on economic strategies for small enterprises,” Dr McField writes, exhorting voters. “I honestly believe that we have more of a chance to survive if I, a caring leader, is elected to help lead in these serious times.”
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