The Tribune

The Democratic National Alliance’s (DNA) leader has pledged to ease the Bahamas’ exchange control regime if elected to office, and to make the Bahamas known as a “country open for business”.

Branville McCartney told Tribune Business that he would immediately tackle the bureaucracy, “red tape” and inefficiency plaguing the approvals processes for too many entrepreneurs and those looking to either enter or expand businesses.

“What we should be aiming for is a country known for being open to business - locally and to the world,” he said. “All this red tape, bureaucracy, taxes and inefficiency causes it to be an objective that cannot be reached under this administration.

“Under a DNA administration, we are going to be open for business. We are going to be efficient, make sure that people do their jobs, and are going to invite businesses from around the world and locally.”

Tribune Business has frequently highlighted in recent articles how the difficulties and uncertainties experienced by many Bahamian and foreign-owned businesses in obtaining timely, efficient approvals has contributed in no small part to the economy’s past two-year contraction and inability to create meaningful, sustainable jobs.

The issue was brought into further focus by Ryan Pinder, the former financial services minister in this administration and Elizabeth MP, when he revealed that he had two separate clients who have been waiting 10 weeks and three months, respectively, for Business Licences.

This seems to have finally caught the attention of Prime Minister Perry Christie, who this week told a seminar hosted by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and National Development Plan secretariat, that the Bahamas’ 106th ranking in the World Bank’s ‘ease of doing business’ rankings was “unacceptable”.

“For far too long we have been too complacent,” Mr Christie said.

“While there have been important changes over the decades, we have not as a country made a collaborative and concerted effort to change the Bahamian business environment and we are paying heavily for that now.”

He continued: “Our business environment, unfortunately, is know for its red tape and bureaucracy. Our agencies are too often likely to say come back another day, than offer advice on how to achieve the desired outcome.

“We must continue to change this negative reality if we are to exist as a vibrant service economy, and if our Bahamian-owned businesses are to flourish. There must be clarity in our rules, certainty in our application and a zero-tolerance for graft and corruption.”

Mr McCartney, in his recent interview with this newspaper, promised that a DNA administration would help businesses “get on their feet and to be successful”.

And, for those seeking to expand or make investments abroad, he pledged to facilitate this via amendments to the Bahamas’ exchange control regime.

“We’re going to ensure there’s no economic discrimination against Bahamians by relaxing the exchange control laws that apply to Bahamians,” he told Tribune Business. “Currently, they can only get financing and capital in this jurisdiction.”

This, Mr McCartney said, placed them at a disadvantage against foreign investors, who were able to exploit lower interest rates on the international markets to obtain cheaper financing.

The DNA leader said this issue was brought into sharp relief for him when he mulled a bid for a well-known boutique hotel that had been placed on the market.

“I looked at a hotel a year-and-a-half ago, the Red Carpet Inn,” Mr McCartney told Tribune Business. “I looked at it and thought: ‘What would it take to buy that?

“They wanted you to give everything including the kitchen sink to the bank. If I could have had access to capital internationally, I could have gotten that in a heart beat.

“Because of economic discrimination, I had to say I couldn’t do it. We have political independence, but not economic independence as a people. That has to change.”