The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The private sector is being urged to shake off its “apathy” and ensure the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation (BCCEC) has the financial war-chest to “push back against any unsustainable and irresponsible” government policies.

Robert Myers, the BCCEC’s chairman, in an e-mail to members, warned that the Chamber was “maxed out” and its “coffers will be dry” unless it receives more donations to fight “the onslaught” of unsustainable government policies.

Fearing that the BCCEC will be unable to finance campaigns over planned initiatives such as National Health Insurance (NHI), Mr Myers warned that unless the Bahamian private sector could “inject some sensibility” into the national debate it was “in for some very troubling times”.

“People must be made to understand the benefits of donating to a Chamber that will push back against any government’s unsustainable and irresponsible campaign promises,” Mr Myers wrote.

“The Chamber is the right vehicle to push back against the Government; what is missing is the commitment by those that can and should influence the business community to join in and donate time and money to the causes we take up.”

Mr Myers added that the business community was now facing “a critical 12 months”, as the Government moved on Value-Added Tax (VAT) and fiscal reform, and sought progress on initiatives such as National Health Insurance (NHI), potential minimum wage increases and National Insurance Board (NIB) rises.

With an election campaign cycle soon to follow, the BCCEC chairman said: “If we are unable to inject some serious sensibility into the mix between now and then, I believe we are in for some very troubling times.

“We must market and publicise our own campaign, and get the public... to see the benefit to endorsing the Chamber’s platform of ‘what is right for the economy is right for the people’. The country cannot go on as it is, and I am committed to push back and attain balance.”

Pointing out that he had been seeking donations to the BCCEC for months, Mr Myers wrote: “These funds will allow us to work against the onslaught of unfunded and unsustainable political wishes of the Government.

“We are about to launch our Fiscal Reform campaign that will run for the next three months, and if we don’t raise additional funding the the coffers will be dry and we will be unable to fund additional campaigns on NHI, wage growth, NIB and labour reform that are all on the Government’s agenda.

“The Chamber is maxed out on spending and is constantly fighting battles it can’t afford, and membership and donations remain a massive challenge.”

Mr Myers contrasted the BCCEC’s 500-strong membership with the estimated 3,500 businesses that will be considered mandatory VAT registrants, suggesting that more of these should become involved in assisting the Chamber.

In an interview with Tribune Business, Mr Myers conceded that the BCCEC was “challenged” to finance the research and data-gathering it needed to provide evidence-based support for its positions on the Government’s initiatives.

He added that the BCCEC had proposed taking over the Business Licence/registration process to both provide itself with an income stream and boost the process’s efficiency, noting that developed world countries held Chambers of Commerce in much higher regard.

Mr Myers, comparing these nations to the Bahamas, said it was often mandatory that businesses join their local Chambers of Commerce, as governments recognised how useful such organisations were to the policymaking process.

“We’re challenged,” Mr Myers told Tribune Business. “We’ve got so much on our plates right now, working to keep the public and membership informed, trying to do these reports, leaning on the International Labour Organisation (ILO) for statistical data, going to Oxford Economics [for the VAT report]. They don’t it for free.

“It puts on a lot of pressure. What the Government is doing causes us to allocate resources to do the research, and that’s expensive.”

Despite the time and expense involved, Mr Myers said the end result was worth it. “There’s no checks and balances other than the Opposition and the Chamber of Commerce at this point,” he added.

“It’s important that the public and the private sector appreciate and recognise the role of the Chamber of Commerce in times like this..... It’s just endless. We’ve got a lot of people devoting a lot of time, but it’s not enough. It’s very hard.”

“It’s one of the reasons why, in more sophisticated markets, countries and economies, that it’s mandatory that every business has to be a member of the Chamber,” Mr Myers said. “It constitutes a check and balance, and a platform for the private sector that is very valuable to governments.

“Our governments fail to recognise that. One of our recommendations was that the Chamber of Commerce becomes the business registry, providing us with income. We’d get some funding from the private sector, without them having to become members of the Chamber.”

Mr Myers told Tribune Business that having the Chamber act as the business registry would “provide a lot of other knock-on benefits” to the private sector, such as better quality data that might “otherwise be very difficult to obtain”.

But making the BCCEC responsible for the Business Licence and registration process lies squarely in the hands of government.

“All we can do is ask and try,” Mr Myers said. “At the end of the day, success or failure is theirs [the Governments]. It’s hard to be a successful economy without a successful private sector. I would say nigh on impossible.”