The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

There are few sights more embarrassing than a Bahamian government minister getting before an international audience and arguing that, despite the data consistently confirming us as a high-income country with a high standard of living, we somehow deserve to be classed among Haiti, Honduras and El Salvador, when it comes to concessionary lending.

Last week they were at it again, virtually pleading with the IDB to ignore the United States’ correct assessment that The Bahamas and Barbados ought long to have been “graduated” out of the category of countries that genuinely deserve the bank’s discretionary lending rates. In many of these countries IDB projects significantly impact living standards (unlike in the Bahamas, where such projects pale in comparison to social and infrastructural spending out of our tax-funded consolidated fund) and could not be financed otherwise (unlike the Bahamas, which can and does easily access financing in the capital markets).

For the record, there is nothing “skewed” or misleading about the fact that the Bahamas’ standard of living and wealth per capita are on a par not with developing countries, but with developed ones.

Our per capita income, as calculated, does not include the wealthy foreign residents of Lyford Cay or international investors. Rather it reflects the indigenous Bahamian labour force, which contains a large middle income portion and smaller upper income and lower income groups. All three of these groups earn a higher income than their counterparts in any developing country and many “developed” ones.

IDB delegates would clearly have been cognizant, for instance, that their short taxi rides from the Airport to Cable Beach would have cost far more than the average daily income in many of their countries. In fact, Bahamian taxi drivers easily earn more than most professionals in most countries.

Aside from the obvious and anecdotal, the genuinely high standard of living of the Bahamas is further reflected by the fact that Bahamians are permitted Visa-free travel to virtually every First World country on earth (unheard of in countries with low or middle-income status), because we remain an immigration destination, rather than source. More tellingly, the Bahamas remits far more money abroad via services like MoneyGram than it receives (around $150 million annually). More, in fact, is sent from the Bahamas to the United States than the other way around. These are not the characteristics of a country that deserves to be treated as anything other than ‘developed’ by multinational organizations.

If we had politicians with any sense of pride in our national status (or even of their own relative success since 1973), they would accept this fact with grace and forego the pitifully insignificant advantage this country derives from the “concessionary” lending rates on IDB funded projects. Unfortunately, Bahamian politicians seem to prefer to talk down the country at every opportunity before international audiences, either out of misplaced ‘solidarity’ with less developed Caribbean countries, or out of simple ignorance.

The Bahamas is neither a victim of history nor a country deserving of the world’s pity or assistance (whether that means aid or ‘concessionary lending’). Rather it is an underperforming First World country. And for that we have only our politicians to blame.

ANDREW ALLEN

Nassau,

April 11, 2016.