The rollover policy and the financial industry

Friday, June 9, 2006

Dear Sir:

The failure for Mr Leonard Ebanks to be elected in the 2000 elections should have and ought to still raise questions in the minds of indigenous Caymanians.

If he was elected to public office, it would have been a great advantage for this country to add a seasoned, financially experienced Caymanian in the political arena. It would have also been a huge benefit for the people of these Islands to have someone in public office with a wealth of knowledge and understanding of the financial industry to create competitive changes, amend or add new policies to increase better competition and reduce the tight control of the closely guarded financial status in these Islands by the Bankers' Association - Mr Eduardo D'Angelo Silva and his group.

For example, the Bankers' Association is and has always been controlled for a number of years by foreign national expatriates who manage large corporations and financial institutions that are only concerned about the returns for their investors; which technically means that the decisions made in the past and that are still being made have not and do not include any real benefits for the indigenous people of these Islands such as lowering the interest rates and lower payments to name a few examples.

In business in the real world in developed industrialized countries, a trade off is usually attained to satisfy the customer, the employers and the shareholders or investors. Meaning that unlike conducting business in Cayman, that in order for businesses to survive among their competitors, the customer is a valuable or major component that is always seriously considered when making business decisions. However, experience has dictated that businesses locally operate differently.

The mere fact that Mr Ebanks was not elected to public office in the 2000 elections alleviates any threat to introducing better competition and reducing the horrendous interest rates we are forced to pay each day. Therefore as long as a Caymanian with any knowledge in the banking and finance area is kept out of public office, we will continue to pay the high rates of interest and financial institutions will continue to manipulate the present ironclad control the Bankers' Association has in place that is tenaciously controlled and manipulated by the president Mr Eduardo D'Angelo Silva and his group.

However, to validate or revoke the recent claims recently made, reserve managerial position for qualified foreign personnel is rubbish. Therefore, it would be very interesting should the Department of Labour be so kind as to gather and publicly print statistical information in the media highlighting the number of qualified Caymanians with practical banking experience who are unemployed having been shoved out of the banking industry and forced to seek other means of employment.

It is important for all those interested to understand one of the fundamental issues that drive qualified persons from Europe to migrate to the Western Hemisphere upon completing their prestigious academic extrinsically inclined qualifications in the first place. 

The reason is quite simple, this is because in Europe, employers really don't give a hoot or even care about what type of qualifications you have, their primary concern is whether one has practical experience and if you don't have any practical experience, employers are not too keen on going beyond reviewing an application much less consider hiring a recent, inexperienced university graduate.

So persons such as Mr O'Dea, Mr Eduardo D'Angelo Silva and others like them who continue to falsely inflate justifying the issue on why foreign national qualified recruits are required or necessary to fill managerial positions in the local financial industry, need to confess the fact of why such large number of foreign national recruits are constantly migrating from Europe on an annual basis in the first place.

I believe that this rollover policy is an important issue that needs to be constantly discussed and held at the forefront of the public's eye until the large financial institutions in this country agree to begin training competent Caymanians with sufficient practical experience, with the view of Caymanians eventually filling managerial positions.

After all, the Caymanian people are continuously being asked to make compromising decisions, but no request is ever made for the large corporations to make any concessions for the development and growth of the indigenous people to grow as the country develops.

A trade off must be made, and the local people cannot continue to be expected to always make compromises, both the large corporations and the people of these Islands must and should be able to benefit from the growth and development of this country without any side losing or compromising everything.

Tyrone Douglas

Back...