The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Freeport’s ability to absorb another 100,000 people “without the Government having to spend a nickel” means the Bahamas should focus its economic growth efforts on the second city.

Peter Goudie, head of the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation’s (BCCEC) employment and labour division, told Tribune Business that Freeport’s planned lay-out and existing infrastructure meant it had been “ripe for plucking” for decades.

Implying that the city, and its governing Hawksbill Creek Agreement, were under-used assets that the Bahamas is still failing to maximise, Mr Goudie said: “If we can get entrepreneurs to come into Freeport and create jobs, we don’t have to spend a nickel to get 100,000 people in there.

“That’s what we should be focusing our attention. We’ve got the infrastructure in Freeport already. We don’t have to build any roads, we have the sewer lines in, and with that we have the ability to absorb 100,000 people.

“If we can get Freeport to take off, it will create a demand for housing. It would solve the building crisis, the contractors would go crazy, and everybody will be happy.”

Freeport-based advocates such as Fred Smith QC, the Callenders & Co attorney and partner, have long argued that the city is the ‘solution staring the Bahamas in the face’ for its economic and social problems.

Its existing infrastructure and business climate, they argue, provides the platform for economic and population expansion that would take the pressure off Nassau to be the sole main driver for the Bahamas.

Yet despite its relative success on the industrial and shipping front, Freeport has failed for several decades to gain the critical mass necessary for sustained success. Some observers have put this down to the Government’s reluctance to ‘let Freeport go’ and become what it was envisioned to be, fearing a loss of control.

Yet the fact Nassau-based voices, such as Mr Goudie’s, are now adding to the argument means it may be one the Government and economic planners cannot ignore for much longer.

“That is a great part of the answer to me,” Mr Goudie told Tribune Business of Freeport’s unfulfilled economic potential. “It’s been ripe for plucking since I was a young man. That’s the place we should be putting focus on.

“Let the entrepreneurs come in and away we go. That’s the biggest challenge and easiest answer to our problems. The simple answer is Freeport, as it will not cost a nickel to develop the place. It will create building and construction jobs. It just makes economic sense.”

Other factors that have held Freeport back are the Government’s constant tinkering with its regulatory environment, and the resulting uncertainty this produces. Current concerns centre on the absence of any answer from the Government over whether the city’s real property tax, Business Licence and other incentives set to expire in 2015 will be renewed.

Mr Goudie, meanwhile, backed calls by BCCEC chairman Robert Myers for the Bahamas to liberalise its Immigration policy and allow a new generation of entrepreneurs and senior managers to operate from this nation.

“We’re both big proponents that if we are to grow the economy, we have to loosen up on Immigration policy and let entrepreneurs come in and create jobs,” he told Tribune Business.

Mr Myers had previously called for the Bahamas to liberalise Immigration policy towards upper and middle management posts to generate the economic growth necessary to create jobs for its 55 per cent “unskilled” school leavers.

Writing in a position paper for the Chamber Institute, Mr Myers said the Immigration hurdles to importing expatriate middle managers meant the Bahamian economy was restricted “to cottage industry and limited growth”.

And this, in turn, made it even harder for employers and the workforce to every year absorb the several thousand high school graduates who lack the necessary social and workplace skills.

Mr Myers wrote: “ “To compound the problem, Immigration policies have made it expensive and difficult to import qualified persons to fill middle income and middle management jobs.

“This has a knock on effect to businesses, as growth is inhibited by businesses’ inability to afford and obtain suitable management. Without competent, productive and cost effective management, businesses are not likely to expand and the country is subject to cottage industry and limited growth.”

The Chamber chairman added: “The irony of this Immigration policy is that it is stifling business growth that then negatively impacts employment of the unskilled/undereducated, and unemployment climbs.

“We must relax our Immigration policy relative to middle and upper management to obtain greater GDP growth and lower unemployment, not restrict it.”