EDITOR, The Tribune
Confirming a lack of understanding of the depths of the economic problems facing the country, Prime Minister Christie announced a “Competitiveness Council” to work out of his office to improve The Bahamas’ declining status in the ease of doing business ranking while saying the country’s slippage in the rankings “doesn’t represent who The Bahamas is”.
In other words, the Prime Minister is appointing this council in a half-hearted attempt to quell the noise in the market about the difficulty of doing business here.
Symbolism over substance is the hallmark of this administration.
Meanwhile their policies like VAT, Tax Compliance Certificates and delays in granting permission to open shop to name but a few, are wreaking havoc on the business community and economic growth.
One can appoint all the councils they like, but if you don’t admit or understand the problems your policies create within the business and wider community it’s just more whistling past the graveyard of an economy in ever deeper doldrums.
RICK LOWE
Nassau
November 20, 2016
Comments
Conch 7 years, 11 months ago
I hate to be the one to say it but the Bahamas suffers from more than a crisis of Business Activity. You are being enslaved by foreign lenders while you try to maintain a “Culture of Corruption”. The Baha Mar project should clearly demonstrate that foreign lenders don’t give a damn about the Bahamian People. In addition the Bahamian Govt. continually out spends tax revenues by 400-500 million dollars a year ever increasing the governments need for cash flow. This over spending can be primarily attributed to overly generous Govt. Employee Pensions & Salaries. Also the ratio of govt. employees to citizens is to high. The major banks have left the Bahamas. There is no need for so many ministries. Live within your means and save religiously is the simple advice for any person or country trying to achieve prosperity.This compulsive spending addiction has motivated Govt. Officials to gamble your future by approving the BAHA MAR project. When that scheme went bad they decided to VAT Tax the citizens & tourists to death to fund their spending habits. No other govt. in the world would go from 0 to 7.5% tax scheme all at once. Zero to 7.5% taxation increase in its self will cause a major contraction of business activity to the tune of??? You guessed it 7.5%. Also the concept of FREE TRADE is greatly misunderstood in the Bahamas. End all tariffs on all imports permanently and dissolve that Ministry. If the Bahamian govt. really cared about its people they would have had stacks of free plywood and roofing available on each island affected by hurricane Matthew the very next week. Instead the Bahamian people are scratching their heads wondering where all the VAT TAX money went and are force to fill out endless forms for relief of any type. This type of aid would have cost less than .5% of GDP, leaving govt. officials with you guessed it 7% vat tax to squander. Now is the time for a vote of no confidence and a change of govt. Then pare down the govt. budget to equal 85% of tax revenues and use the other 15% to build up a storm emergency fund for the next tropical storm coming. Default on foreign loans if need be. Tropical storm damage has occurred historically on average every 2-4 years in the Bahamas. There has been a slack period of tropical storm activity the last couple of decades and the Bahamas’ maybe returning to a more normal frequency, See http://www.hurricanecity.com/city/grand… for historical storm info. Finally tourists are your greatest source of National Revenue. The shenanigans going on relieving tourists of their $$$ need to be curtailed. For example the fraudulent timeshare real estate industry needs to be cleaned up and $30 drinks plus 18% tip on the cruise ships from Florida need to end as this causes tourist not to return. No Customers, No Business, No Economy. Simply having tourists visit twice a year instead of once could double GDP. Las Vegas has a tourist return rate that is envy of the world. $$$
Sign in to comment
OpenID