The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMAS Public Services Union President John Pinder said the union will be “proactive” in formulating a draft for negotiations for increased pay for union members in time for the government’s tabling of its recently completed petroleum legislation.

Mr Pinder said after “agitating for some time” to have the government consider a “sovereign trust fund,” the BPSU will be in a position to go after trying to get “some more revenue and more increases” for its members when the legislation is tabled in Parliament next month.

His comments came after Environment and Housing Minister Kenred Dorsett said on Wednesday that legislation to govern oil exploration will also include the framework for a “sovereign wealth fund” that would benefit the nation in case commercially viable quantities of oil are discovered.

“We have to be proactive this time,” Mr Pinder said. “We missed out on Value Added Tax (discussions). I think we were a little bit too slow on moving on a formal position. We should have put a position paper forward, a formal position paper on VAT prior to it going to Parliament. We should have caught it in its bill stage, but after they rushed it through we were not able to get any of our concerns addressed, so we got caught on the tail end.

“This time we want to be proactive, and make sure that we type up the draft before it reaches Parliament and have some meetings to ensure that those things we expect to happen are actually mentioned in the draft bill. (The legislation) is long overdue but at least they’re making some effort to put it in place,” he said. “For some time now it had been a cry in the wilderness for it to be implemented. The fact that they’re taking some steps to do it is a step in the right direction.”

On Wednesday Mr Dorsett said legislation to govern oil exploration in the country would include the framework for a sovereign wealth fund to ensure that in the event oil is discovered in commercially viable quantities in the Bahamas, “the wealth that will accrue to the nation as a result will be invested, managed, and conserved in the most optimal way for present and future generations of Bahamians.”

Mr Dorsett said the legislation has the capacity to vastly increase the nation’s wealth and will feature provisions that would better regulate the oil exploration industry from an environmental standpoint.

He said the government expects to table the long-awaited legislation soon after the House of Assembly resumes next month.

In June, after negotiating and successfully completing with the government a minimum wage increase for public workers, Mr Pinder said the union had reserved the right to negotiate further pay increases for civil servants if royalties for the export of natural resources like aragonite are increased or if oil is struck in the Bahamas.

He said if the government did “anything before 2018 to yield much more revenue from the national resources,” the union had the right “to come to the table and ask for more for our members.”