By James M Bodden III

To save our governmental structure and socio-economic structure we have to cut costs and introduce other means to save money. One of the biggest issues plaguing our government is the numerous ineffective and continually losing Authorities, as well as the extremely bloated and inefficient bureaucratic civil service.

For us to move forward we have to cut from the upper echelon of the civil service and essentially privatise many, if not all, of these Authorities. There are various ways to do this: Government can sell 49 percent of each Authority on the stock exchange (as stocks or shares), making it a public company.

The open public (anyone) would be able to purchase these issued shares off the Cayman Stock Exchange, or even on the international stock exchanges. However, these stocks would be based on the assets of each individual Authority. Another way that the Authorities could be privatised by government and sold (49%) to parallel businesses within the economy and sign a management contract where government would simply collect their percentage and have an oversight officer appointed to monitor the management of each Authority, as well as secure tight long term relationship contracts.

There is also the path of selling off the Authorities all together and handing these necessary infrastructural agencies to private companies or corporations. This would bring in a great influx of cash but the management and control of these agencies would be in the hands of private individuals or companies. For this to be sensible and successful there would have to be strict parameters for the sale of each Authority, which would ensure a secured level of service and output.

Such initiatives would entail the privatisation of Cayman Airways, the Port Authority, the Water Authority, etc. In either form, such public and private suggestions would bring cash into the hands of government while removing the overhead costs and losses that many of these Authorities impose on government chafers.

In combination with this overall downsizing of government there needs to be a downsizing and restructuring within the upper tiers of the civil service. It is said that government pays civil service (3,166 workers) CI$192,000,000 a year. If this was averaged out it would mean that every civil service worker earns a salary of CI$60,644 per year or CI$5,053 per month.

We are all cognizant of the fact that this is not the case. Viewing these figures we can see that there are but a few individuals that are receiving extremely bloated salaries. Yet, we see that many of these individuals are simply movable pieces tenured into a government job. This only adds to the ineffectiveness and wastefulness of our government.

However, many of these positions should be made redundant altogether because they are simply not needed and are draining our coffers. The ministries do not need such wide and extensive staff and secretaries. Essentially, they should be issued an executive assistant and an administrative assistant with coinciding staff of no more than three for each assistant.

After that any additional staff would be paid for from each individual representative’s salary. This will reduce salary overhead, while not necessarily reducing output or efficiency. This would entail simply hiring further individuals as personal staff, not as government employees. None of this is meant to upset or speak negatively concerning our civil service but what other choices do we have at this point.

We need to think realistically and not selfishly. We have to acknowledge the fact that when a government becomes too wide in its structure, it automatically becomes locked in bureaucratic inefficiency. To restructure the civil service would be to revitalize the entire government, increasing productivity. If much of the civil service is privatised, this will remove the burden from government for the bureaucratic doldrums that have become the civil service.

Finally, a sliding scale pay cut could be instituted. Instead of enacting a blanket pay cut, the sliding scale would involve the highest paid income bracket of the civil service (for example CI$10,000 or more) would receive a 20% pay cut (for example) and then the percentage would decrease as the income bracket decreased (for example those making between CI$1,500-2,000 would only receive a 5% pay cut).

Overall, this would reduce expenditure without overtaxing the bulk of the civil service. Again, none of these suggestions are meant to harm the civil service. These are just ideas with hope to aid in the revitalisation of government coffers.