The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The ability of Bahamian-owned businesses to leverage foreign direct investment (FDI) projects for their own benefit is “not where it should be”, a Cabinet Minister said yesterday, arguing that this nation “never had a strategy” to achieve this.

Khaalis Rolle, minister of state for investments, told Tribune Business that the Bahamas continued to lack a model for “extracting long-term, sustainable benefits” from FDI projects for locally-owned companies and entrepreneurs.

Arguing that Bahamian companies that worked for Kerzner International on its Paradise Island projects were “not as well-positioned as they should be”, he revealed that one of the first complaints he received upon taking office in May 2012 was over a foreign cleaning company doing work for a major hotel.

Speaking to this newspaper from Geneva, where he attended the World Investment Forum, Mr Rolle said: “Many of the challenges we have identified locally are challenges other countries are facing, attracting FDI and getting corresponding development of local people and businesses as a result.

“One of the things we identified in 2012 is that we continue to get lots of FDI, but the small and medium-sized business development that results from this is not where it should be.”

He added: “We have a lot of work to do to create a model for investing. We have been very good at attracting it, but extracting long-term, sustainable benefits requires a strategy, and the Bahamas has never had a strategy.

“Our strategy ended when we attracted the investment. Even though we had a National Investment Policy approach to protecting local investors, we’ve not done a great job in providing an enabling environment for locals to truly benefit from FDI.”

Giving practical examples, Mr Rolle said: “Many of the companies that got opportunities early on with Kerzner are not as well-positioned as they should have been. We still have a lot of companies offering services that Bahamian companies should be able to offer.

“There was a complaint into my office, when I first came in, from cleaning companies about a foreign company doing cleaning work for one of the major resorts.

“That’s unacceptable. Anyone can do that. That’s not high tech. That’s not high finance. It’s amazing. We’ve just got a lot of work to do to develop sustainable programmes for local business people to benefit from FDI.”

Mr Rolle said several investment prospects emerged from the World Investment Forum, with his team of officials having headed to the Swiss city of Lausanne to meet with one group interested in the Bahamas.

“When I come to conferences like this, I realise how much we tend to miss by not being actively involved in everything that’s taking place in the world,” he told Tribune Business.