The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas will find itself “in a dark place” unless it rapidly reinvents how it conducts business, a well-known businessman yesterday urging it to “open up” for greater short-term growth.

Robert Myers, one of the newly-formed Organisation for Responsible Governance’s (ORG) founders, told Tribune Business that the Bahamas’ relatively low economic growth levels were “a symptom” of underlying structural, governance and productivity weaknesses.

He added that only persons “asleep at the wheel” would have been surprised by Moody’s verdict that the Bahamas is “stuck in a low growth trap”, its 1.5 per cent average annual economic expansion same way off the Caribbean’s pace this century.

Given this nation’s education and productivity woes, Mr Myers said the country needed to “open up” to targeted foreign investors and management executives, who could create businesses and jobs for Bahamians until these problems were fixed.

He reiterated his call for Bahamians to be “part of the solution” to the nation’s issues, and said both the public and civil society organisations needed to “start pushing the Government” for reform.

“It is absolutely a symptom of the underlying causes,” Mr Myers said of the Moody’s report revealed by Tribune Business.

“We have to have greater accountability in governance, and that’s with regard to fiscal responsibility and Freedom of Information and productivity.

“Then we’ve got to focus more significantly on education, because that’s paramount to obtaining more productivity and GDP growth.”

Mr Myers suggested that the Bahamas needed to ‘trade off’ a relaxation of its Immigration policies for increased economic growth and local jobs in the short-term, while it fixed the challenges with its education system and workforce productivity.

“We’ve got to have these conversations with regard to education and Immigration policies,” the former Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation’s (BCCEC) chairman told Tribune Business.

“If we want to see GDP growth increase while we’re improving education, we’ve got to encourage Immigration that comes from places where people have higher education, and the ability to employ Bahamians in the various industries we are trying to attract.

“Also, we have to allow existing businesses - businesses, period - to hire a higher calibre of person that allows them to expand their operation and create Bahamian jobs, at a lower cost,” Mr Myers added.

“The Immigration costs are prohibitive for many businesses. Create more jobs and mandate more training. We’ve got to educate the workforce and educate the school kids.”

The ORG is focusing on economic growth, governance (transparency and accountability) and education as its three core issues.

Mr Myers said it was dividing education into three “buckets”: Lower, middle and high school education; vocational education and career development; and college graduates.

He warned that unless the Bahamas achieved higher rates of GDP growth, and provided more diverse job opportunities, it risked creating a ‘vicious circle’ whereby its most talented individuals remained abroad to work.

“If GDP remains stagnant or low, it’s very hard to create opportunities for college graduates to return,” Mr Myers told Tribune Business.

“If we don’t create the opportunities for those young adults, college graduates, it’s a global world with global competition, and you’re going to have a brain drain. That, in turn, contributes to lower GDP growth.

“You’ve actually got to open up the economy, not close it down, and Immigration is a critical part of that as the cost of bringing someone to the Bahamas is extremely high,” he added.

“We’ve got to work on these things and encourage businesses to grow, while we make sure we educate our people properly.”

Mr Myers called for the Government to provide tax incentives to companies that invested in training their workforces and boosting productivity. And he called for it to do likewise in the public sector.

“Until we start fixing these drivers of the economy, we’re not going to see any change,” he said. “I think from 2000 we’ve had spurts of growth from predominantly foreign direct investment (FDI).

“The problem is, if we want to move into a new era of growth and development in the country, we’ve got to reinvent the way the country does business.

“We’re seeing it across the globe. Governments have to be efficient and much smarter, and so does the private sector and the public. It’s a much more competitive marketplace globally,” Mr Myers added.

“The faster we can move on things like Freedom of Information and accountability, the quicker you’re going to see increased private sector growth and confidence. That will lead to greater employment and consumer confidence. These things matter a tremendous amount.”

Mr Myers, though, said the failure to-date of both FNM and PLP administrations to act on demands for a Freedom of Information Act, and Fiscal Responsibility-type legislation, showed neither understood the need for change.

“S&P and Moody’s aren’t interested in listening to you talk; they want to see action,” he explained. “They want to see you walk the walk.

“That’s what needs to happen, and what we’ve been advocating; that the people need to start pushing the Government to do these things, or otherwise they’re going to find themselves in a very dark place.”

While “optimistic” that the Bahamas could summon the collective will to make the necessary changes, Mr Myers said every Bahamian had a part to play - including the private sector and the Government.

“It’s a national effort,” he emphasised. “We can’t sit there and blame the Government. We all have to figure this out and make the change, and act as the solution for this change. If we don’t do that, we get what we deserve.”