The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

INTERNATIONAL clients have been the biggest users of the Government’s on-line real property tax (RPT) payment service, a senior official telling Tribune Business yesterday there were 5,000 registered users of the e-government portal.

Carol Roach, deputy director at the Ministry of Finance’s Department of Information Technology, and a presenter at the first ever Bahamas Real Estate Association (BREA) inter-island web conference, told Tribune Business there has been a steady growth of about 200 persons per month registering with the e-government portal.

“It started off very slow. We launched in July of 2011, but when January 2012 came around and people had to pay their annual real property tax fee, we found that we had a growth spurt,” said Ms Roach.

“And with the public relations we have been doing, we have seen a steady growth of maybe 200 or so persons a month, so it’s been increasing.”

Ms Roach said the e-government portal was particularly beneficial to the real estate industry as it relates to clients being able to pay their real property tax online.

“Individuals from abroad, especially persons investing in land, always find that it’s difficult to either send in a cheque or draft to pay it, so just having that real property tax payment system is a huge plus for the real estate industry. Our biggest user of the real property tax payment system has been our international clients,” said Ms Roach.

She added that the e-government portal was an essential component in the push to improving the ease of doing business in the Bahamas.

Through www.bahamas.gov.bs, general information about the Government and the Bahamas can be obtained, and online payments made for services such as a driver’s license and real property tax.

The $10.2 million e-government system was launched under the Ingraham administration in 2011. Persons are able to renew driver’s licenses, pay real property tax, access customer services and make vendor inquiries, as well as applications for business licenses and payment of business licence taxes.

“We actually have the Business Licence on-line service, but there has been a change in some laws so we had to revamp that. There are some other services we are working on as well,” said Ms Roach.

BREA president Franon Wilson, speaking on the benefits of the e-government service, said: “This is huge. The reality is that members of BREA have clients overseas who have to pay real property tax.

“There was a situation in Exuma, for example, where there was an issue whether the real property tax was paid or not. That could be avoided because you pay directly to government online.

“There are also other services available on-line. Smaller one-man operations can now have access to the information, whereas in the past large companies may have had access to it but smaller companies didn’t. This is making it better for smaller and medium-sized businesses to compete.”