The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Chamber of Commerce’s (BCCEC) chief executive yesterday criticised small businesses for failing to fully exploit all the assistance available to them, disclosing that just two companies had taken advantage of its free book-keeping service over the past year.

Noting that maintaining proper accounting records was “a major, major issue” for the Bahamian private sector, Winston Rolle also lamented the business community’s general failure to respond to surveys that would generate much-needed data all companies could use.

Addressing a seminar staged by the Government-sponsored venture capital fund, Mr Rolle said the BCCEC provided services such as free book-keeping and its impending Mentorship Programme not for profit, but “because we want business to succeed”.

He said: “From February last year, we announced at the Chamber that for any small business having challenges keeping its books, we would provide it as a service.

“Small businesses have some unique challenges, and are not able to afford ‘x’ dollars a month to pay accountants to keep their books in order.

“We wanted to provide it as a service to the small business community, but since February last year we’ve only had two companies come forward - and one of those only came forward in the last few weeks. We have to use the resources available to us.”

Mr Rolle said this would be especially important in the coming year, as companies potentially had to modify their operations and computer/accounting systems to cope with the demands of a Value-Added Tax (VAT).

While the Government is proposing that companies with an annual turnover of less than $50,000 per annum will not have to register to pay VAT, seemingly sparing most small businesses, many of these may choose to register voluntarily - especially if the ‘input’ credits they can access are greater than VAT paid on their sales.

Mr Rolle said VAT could be four-five times more difficult for Bahamian companies to deal with when compared to Customs duties, as the burden for calculating and paying due taxes to the Government fell on them.

Calling on Bahamian companies of all sizes to ‘get ahead of the curve’ when it came to preparing for and implementing a VAT, the BCCEC chief executive said: “There’s some disciplines we have to put in place.

“As we move to a new tax structure, businesses need to start getting themselves ready now, not wait for what is to come..... We have enough information out there to look at.”

Meanwhile, Mr Rolle confirmed that the BCCEC was set to launch its Mentorship Programme within “the next few weeks”. Some 35-40 ‘mentors’, who will work with small business, providing practical advice to ensure their sustained success, are already on board.

“We want to provide assistance in any way we can to help the small business community,” he added.

Mr Rolle, though, criticised the private sector in general for its often-tardy response to surveys launched by the BCCEC and other organisations, which were intended to identify trends and data helpful to all companies.

Taking the BCCEC’s Crime Survey as an example, Mr Rolle said the deadline for responses had to be extended twice because not enough companies responded.

Suggesting that this was self-defeating for the Bahamian private sector, Mr Rolle said the failure to obtain a large enough sample size had defeated the efforts of, first the BCCEC, then the Nassau Institute think-tank, to get the Bahamas ranked in the World Competitiveness Forum.

The BCCEC tried in 2007-2008, followed by the Nassau Institute in 2010-2011, Mr Rolle said the only difference was that the Nassau Institute was slightly more successful - eliciting 65 survey responses, compared to the Chamber’s 55.

“We want data but don’t want to share it,” the BCCEC chief executive said.

He added that the Chamber was working with the Inter-American Development (IDB) on a Labour Market Study of the Bahamian workforce, and explained: “The idea was to establish low and high average salaries for each industry.

“Nobody wants to share that information. But once that information is out there in the public domain, we all benefit.

“If I hire someone to do accounts receivables, I’m able to offer a salary somewhere in that industry range, so persons I’m interviewing can’t say: ‘Man, that wage your offering is too low’.”

Pointing to the problems created by the failure of many companies, especially small businesses, to keep proper records, Mr Rolle said that when it came to providing compensation related to the New Providence Road Improvement Project, the Government often had “no way to judge” what a firm’s losses were.

These companies were unable to provide any data on what their pre-roadwork sales were, and those generated during the project.