The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Government is “scared and afraid” to implement transparency-related reforms that are “fundamental” to good governance, the spokesman for a newly-formed civil society group charged yesterday.

Dionisio D’Aguilar told Tribune Business that the Organisation for Responsible Governance was needed to “remind” governments of what was required to properly run the Bahamas.

Suggesting that this nation was slowly failing because it continued to use a “deficient 20th century business model”, Mr D’Aguilar said concepts such as Fiscal Responsibility and Freedom of Information needed to be embedded in statue legislation.

He added that the Bahamian people “cannot rely on the whim” of their politicians to do what is right, and set this nation back on the path to greater prosperity.

“The Government is taking a very dangerous path,” Mr D’Aguilar told Tribune Business.”They’re saying they’re reducing the deficit, but they’ve failed, and are scared and afraid, to put in Fiscal Responsibility and Budget caps in this country.

“Let’s have a Fiscal Responsibility Act, a Freedom of Information Act. They’re trying to bamboozle us that we’ve forgotten about this.

“We need an organisation to remind them that good governance is fundamental to the running of this country. We can’t rely on the whim of a Prime Minister. It has to be codified in law,”he added.

“In any modern society, there’s checks and balances on how the Government spends. We as the Bahamian people don’t care, don’t understand that the Government is running amok, and that we are where we are today because of it.”

A Fiscal Responsibility Act would make the Government more accountable for its financial management and spending, while also enforcing greater transparency by making it go back to the House of Assembly to seek approval for exceeding Budget expenditure estimates.

Mr Christie, in the 2015 mid-year Budget, promised to issue a ‘policy paper’ on Fiscal Responsibility type-legislation by last summer, with recommendations stemming from public consultation submitted by year-end.

The Government has yet to deliver on either promise, and the issue seems one made for the Organisation for Responsible Governance, given its focus on education, economic growth and accountability - and the governance systems the Bahamas needs to achieve all three.

The Organisation for Responsible Governance is set to launch next Thursday via a ‘think tank’ conference at the British Colonial Hilton, and Mr D’Aguilar said the Bahamas had yet to confront many of its structural problems.

“We need checks and balances,” he added. “You still hear many stories about corruption, the padding of contracts, and side deals being done.

“You hear it over and over again, and there’s no transparency, and there’s no intent to deal with these things. You can’t prove it, but perception is everything.”

Mr D’Aguilar said faster economic expansion, and job creation, was necessary to help curtail the crime problem. Education reform, and greater academic achievement, was also linked to this issue, plus the development of a workforce with the skills to grow the economy.

“The business model the Bahamas is using, the 20th century model, is not working, it’s deficient, and it’s manifested in 32,000 people being unemployed; our ease of doing business ranking falling; 148 murders; a debt-to-GDP ratio of around 70 per cent; and a national debt of $6.5 billon,” he told Tribune Business.

“The bureaucracy is also overwhelming. That’s what’s there. How do you change that story?”