The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunmedia.net

A Cabinet Minister yesterday promised the Minnis administration will deliver "revolutionary changes" to improve the ease of doing business, adding: "We can't maintain the status quo."

"This government understands that the ease of 'doing business' has slipped considerably. We have to make it easier for people to do business. There are some revolutionary changes that we are about to introduce because we can't maintain the status quo," said Dionisio D'Aguilar, minister of tourism, at the Abaco Business Outlook conference.

Kristie Powell, a Bahamian senior technical account manager at Google, lamented bureaucracy that impacts the 'ease of doing business'.

She added that millennials were not in government to effect change, and said: "When we approach governments, regardless of who is in power, the amount of red tape where you can't get anything done is perplexing, whereas in the US I can start a business within five minutes without even being a US citizen."

Mr D'Aguilar suggested that attracting college and university-educated Bahamian millennials back home could be a catalyst grow this nation's economy.

Mr D'Aguilar said: "The Bahamas government is in kind of a dilemma because we use government to create employment. There is a desire to make that change. The problem is the political will. This government understands that we have slipped considerably in the ease of doing business. There are frustrating barriers that you constantly run up against and that has to change."