According to many economists, global economies are poised for another seismic shift coming out of COVID-19 lockdown that could be as traumatically far-reaching as the downward spiral triggered by the pandemic.
Governments are already being warned that the projected ‘V-shaped’ recovery - a rapid recovery following a steep decline - could spark an out-off-control inflationary firestorm with equally far-reaching economic and social consequences.
How and when to reopen is a very winding road on the path to recovery.
And like our main article in this edition, that winding road, if not carefully and cautiously navigated could end up at a very ‘un-merry-go-round’ where we end up just fiddling around the edges of the key issues while the burning challenges are left untouched. Invariably and inevitably forming a path of their own.
Such is the case we are now witnessing with the choking bottleneck and Hurley’s Roundabout, a metaphor of sorts deadlock between gridlock and growth.
How to recover the economy, what shape will it take, how to rebalance the economy while at the same time learning to live with the clear and present danger of Covid?
As was the case with its predecessors, and is the case with governments around the world, the current Cayman Islands government is forced to walk the tightrope of a veritable balance of lives over livelihoods.
No doubt this will occupy the mind and much of the time of the government when the budget is presented in the coming weeks.
No one expert or entity has all the answers to the many questions confronting Cayman as we look at reopening.
It’s going to take all hands-on deck if we are to avoid the calamitous gridlock where economic recovery, planned ‘developments’ - some already in the pipeline - and our very way of life are faced with the biggest challenge we’ve experienced in recent memory.
On that HE Governor Martyn Roper and Hon. Premier Wayne Panton are both right.
Coming out of lockdown - despite the acknowledged success of the management then by the previous government - is a bigger challenge than going in. And they were only talking about the public heath safety aspect.
If ever Cayman needed a long-term plan, it is now. Fortunately, there is a Cayman National Development Plan not quite gathering dust on a shelf or computer file somewhere in government.
It is time to literally and figuratively dust it off. It’s needed now more than ever before...and it was urgently needed back then.
It is time for us all to plan the road to reopen Cayman; public sector, private sector and all citizens to have their say and make their input to the reopening road map.
It’s not the time to cast blame or claim fame. It is the time for all to step and take responsibility for how we as a society move forward.
The risk and price of being stuck in a reopening roundabout gridlock is too dire to contemplate.
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