The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Almost one in four Bahamian businesses were “victimised” by crime in 2013-2014, a newly-released Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) report has revealed, with violent crime slashing $50 million off this nation’s annual growth over a 16-year period.

The IDB’s Caribbean Quarterly Bulletin, drawing on data released from a ‘business victimisation survey’ conducted across the region in 2014, found that - on average - crime cost Bahamian companies a sum equivalent to 2.5 per cent of their annuals sales.

And security spending, in a bid to combat crime, represented 3.8 per cent of a Bahamian company’s average sales, the IDB survey found. Thus crime, and crime prevention, consume a sum equivalent to 6.3 per cent of annual sales.

“The costs of crime to the Government and private sector are high,” the IDB’s Caribbean quarterly bulletin says. “Government expenditure on security-related agencies was 13.3 per cent of national recurrent expenditure for 2013-2014.

“The projected impact of homicide on GDP growth is also among the highest in the region, given the high and increasing homicide rates over the period.

“According to estimates, GDP growth could have been higher by 0.6 per cent if the Bahamas had followed the same homicide growth rate as the global average between 1995 and 2011.”

Taking $8 billion as the Bahamas’ annual average GDP over that period, the 0.6 per cent referred to by the IDB equates to almost $50 million in lost economic growth per annum.

Over that 16-year period between 1995 and 2011, that translates into a combined $800 million in economic output lost to the Bahamian economy.

Distilling the problem to the microeconomic level, the IDB document said of Bahamian companies: “The prevalence of firms victimised by crime (23 per cent) is on par with the Caribbean average.

“More than half of the firms surveyed (76 per cent) reported paying for security. Financial loss from crime represented 2.5 per cent of annual sales of private firms, while expenditure on security represented 3.8 per cent of annual sales.”

The IDB report provides an insight into the economic losses, and costs, stemming from the Bahamas’ crime crisis. The Quarterly Bulletin noted that the losses, and security costs, incurred by Bahamian businesses could well be hire, given that just 83 per cent of firms experiencing losses due to crime, and 75 per cent of companies paying for security, responded to the survey.

Still, the proportion of Bahamian businesses “victimised” by crime in 2013-2014 was bang in line with the Caribbean regional average, which stood at 22.5 per cent.

“The impact of crime on the private sector varies widely between countries in the region,” the IDB report said.

“According to data from the PROTEQIN survey of firms in 2013-2014, more than one in five Caribbean businesses (22.5 per cent) reported being a victim of theft, robbery, vandalism or arson during the fiscal year.

“Victimisation prevalence varied from 8.2 per cent of firms in Belize to 33.3 per cent in Guyana. Caribbean countries that were above the unweighted regional average were Guyana (33.3 per cent) and Suriname (29.2 per cent).”

The IDB report said almost one in every two Bahamians, 46.1 per cent, identified crime as “the most important problem faced by the country in 2014”.

The survey found that New Providence (Nassau) was the most theft, vehicle theft and burglary-ridden capital in the Caribbean in 2014-2015.

When it came to theft, some 6.6 per cent of New Providence ‘s population was a victim in 2014-2015, standing above the 4.8 per cent average for Caribbean capitals.

Almost five out of every 100 (4.7 per cent) New Providence residents fell victim to vehicle theft, above the region’s 1.2 per cent average for capitals, while the 4.5 per cent “victimisation prevalence of burglary” again beat the Caribbean average of 4.1 per cent.

New Providence also topped the region’s capital cities for robbery, at 4 per cent compared to an average 2.7 per cent, and threats, where its 8.8 per cent “prevalence” exceeded the regional average of 6.8 per cent.

“In 2014-2015, 1.9 per cent of the Caribbean population in capital metropolitan areas was a victim of vehicle theft,” the IDB report said.

“Comparing these rates with the averages of other capital cities (1.2 per cent) indicates that car theft is particularly high in New Providence and the Port of Spain Metropolitan Area.

“In fact, the car theft rates in these two cities of 4.7 per cent and 2.5 per cent were amongst the highest ever measured in the ICVS (International Crime Victimisation Survey) database.

“An important consideration is clearly the percentage of the population that owns a car, which is also significantly higher in these two cities (83 per cent of respondents in New Providence, and 65 per cent in Port of Spain, reported owning at least one car).”