The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

THE ten per cent reduction in spending ordered last year may be set to increase in the 2018-2019 budget cycle, Immigration Minister Brent Symonette revealed yesterday.

Mr Symonette told The Tribune ministries are facing another cut, or at minimum will be expected to hold firm to the ten per cent decrease set down last July.

He was asked about initiatives, like the establishment of an anti-corruption unit, his ministry would be requesting funding for in this upcoming budget cycle.

“To improve service,” he said, “some better facilities, one of the problems we’re facing is asking is one thing – the government also has to bring public expenditure within line of a certain percentage of the GDP.

“So we all know last year we took a 10 per cent cut. We’re also going to have to take a cut or hold the line this year so it’s very difficult to make progress.

“So the corruption unit will probably be borrowing people or seconding people from the (Royal Bahamas) Defence Force or something like that, so that’s what we have to look at.”

Last July, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis announced a variety of conservative fiscal measures, including a ten per cent cut in spending in all government ministries and no new public sector hiring.

The initiative was met with some scepticism, with people such as former Tall Pines MP Leslie Miller urging caution as severe austerity measures could trigger a recession.

Former Finance Minister James Smith, also an ex-Central Bank governor, told Tribune Business the Minnis administration had “very little wiggle room” to achieve such cuts because so much of the government’s annual budget was consumed by fixed costs.

This included civil servants’ salaries, debt servicing and repayments, and building rentals and other contracts that were already locked in, which were “way up there” in terms of the proportion of the budget they account for.

Mr Smith further warned that civil service “buy in” at all levels – from top to bottom – was vital if the government’s fiscal consolidation is to succeed, as he likened the public sector to “a big aircraft carrier that is hard to turn around.”

In March, Finance Minister Peter Turnquest told Tribune Business the government’s finances “will collapse in on themselves” unless the national debt’s increase is halted, warning Bahamians “more pain will be involved.”

Mr Turnquest said there was “no way” for a quick fix to The Bahamas’ fiscal woes, arguing that the predicament was “just that significant”.