The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Consultation on the Government’s long-awaited National Development Plan begins today, a Cabinet Minister describing it as “fundamental to the future success of the Bahamas” and its economy.

Khaalis Rolle, minister of state for investments, told Tribune Business that the initiative was vital to achieving a modern road map/blueprint for a Bahamian economy that was “not achieving the results we desire”.

He added that the Bahamas’ economic and structural weaknesses had been exposed by the 2008-2009 global recession and its aftermath, with the current model not built to “survive” in difficult times.

Emphasising that “the country succeeds” if the proposed Plan does, Mr Rolle said it would identify economic opportunities for the Bahamas, obstacles in the way and how to overcome them.

And he suggested it would also help the Bahamas and its economy prepare for the rules-based trading environment they were about to enter, acknowledging that many local businesses were “not fully equipped to compete” against global rivals.

Mr Rolle said consultation on the National Development Plan would “kick-off” today with a four-hour presentation and meeting at the College of the Bahamas (COB) Harry C. Moore library, beginning at 10am.

He explained that this was designed to get input from the Bahamas’ top academics, with the consultants then scheduled to give a presentation to the Christie Cabinet tomorrow.

The consulting team features both Bahamian and foreign members. The Bahamian side is being led by former Chamber of Commerce president, Winston Rolle, and the current head of its labour and employment committee, Peter Goudie.

They have partnered with US-based IOS Partners to obtain feedback and advice from stakeholders, in an effort likely to last up to a year.

Mr Rolle described this week’s events as “the start of the actual planning process”. The project, which is being financed with the help of $450,000 from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), has so far focused on putting in place the necessary infrastructure to support the consultation process.

“All the work starts now,” the Minister told Tribune Business. “The reason we’re having some of the results we’re having now is because we don’t have a National Development Plan.

“This will underpin everything we will do in the future of this country. This is fundamental to the success of the Bahamas going forward.”

Likening the Bahamas to a business, Mr Rolle said the country was effectively still operating under a business plan that had not been updated or modernised since 1973 - the year it became independent.

Continuing to rely on a model unchanged for 40 years, he added, meant the Bahamas is “not going to get the concrete results we desire.

“This plan will put us in a position to update the business plan for the country,” Mr Rolle told Tribune Business, “modernise it, identify what the key opportunities are, what the challenges are, and provide a road map for overcoming these challenges successfully.

“We suspect it may take up to a year to have a very comprehensive and integrated plan.”

Tribune Business revealed last year how the $450,000 IDB project was designed to transform the Bahamas Investment Authority (BIA) into a “full-service investment management agency”, shedding its current “low value-added” and reactive approach.

The project, which aims to strengthen the Prime Minister’s Office, said an enhanced BIA and creation of an Economic Planning Unit (EPU) were twin goals leading to the National Economic Development Plan blueprint that is Mr Rolle’s focus.

Asked why no post-independence government had sought to create a National Development Plan, or update the model inherited in 1973, the Minister replied: “That’s the question I have, my friend.

“It hasn’t been done because we were able to continuously able to get results from activities when the world economy was doing well. Our weaknesses were not exposed until the economy crisis, when we realised the structure of our institutions and the activities we were engaged in over the years did not lend themselves to surviving difficult times.

“They did well in good times, and bad in bad times. What we’re trying to do is build institutions for good and bad times.”

The proposed National Development Plan is thus an attempt to embrace methodical planning to chart a sustainable economic future for the Bahamas, as opposed to the ‘ad hoc’ approach employed by several governments.

Mr Rolle described the plan’s formation as “the dirty work”, meaning that while it lacks glamour it is laying the future platform for the Bahamas’ economic growth.

He compared it to building a house, suggesting the National Development was akin to the land purchase, foundation pouring and wall construction - the building blocks to completion.

“If it succeeds, then the country succeeds,” Mr Rolle said of the National Development Plan. “If it doesn’t, we will continue to have the same as what we have had in the past.”

He indicated that the Bahamas’ membership of rules-based trading regimes, such as the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), and potential accession to full World Trade Organisation (WTO) membership, meant it was increasingly important to position this nation’s economy correctly.

“We’re about to engage in the formal international trading environment, rules-based trading, and many of our businesses are not fully equipped to compete as they should,” Mr Rolle told Tribune Business.

“Some will do extremely well, others will not. We want to ensure we equip them to do well in a rules-based trading environment, which will have reciprocity. We’ve had arrangements in the past where it’s not been reciprocal; it’s all been one way.”

The IDB described the project as a “redesign” of the BIA, taking it away from the manual, ‘check-list’ approach to assessing investment proposals to one that is more analytical in nature.

This, it says, will enable the BIA to both better align foreign direct investment (FDI) and Bahamian proposals with the National Economic Development Strategy, and give it a “rational” basis upon which to grant investment incentives.