The Tribune

• Pintard slams ‘truly shameful’ subsidy to US tourists

• Gov’t hits back at ‘absolutely untrue’ health visa claim

‘• Adding free COVID test means cost exceeds $40 fee’

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Government and official Opposition were last night locked in a fresh battle over assertions that Bahamian taxpayers are subsidising US tourists’ return home because the $40 health travel visa cannot cover free COVID testing.

The row erupted after Michael Pintard, the Free National Movement’s (FNM) leader, argued in a statement sent to Tribune Business that it was impossible for the health travel visa fee to finance the provision of a free rapid antigen test to departing visitors as well as the initiative’s other components.

Breaking down the $40 fee, he argued that the majority - around $25 or 62.5 percent - pays for the insurance coverage that allows COVID-infected patients to either be evacuated to their home country or spend extra days in The Bahamas in isolation, together with per diem expenses. Of the balance, Mr Pintard said $10 of every health travel visa fee cover the initiative’s administrative costs and overheads, leaving a $5 surplus which represents the sums remitted to the Treasury.

However, the Opposition leader said he had been taken aback by Dr Michael Darville, minister of health and wellness, stating during last week’s conclusion to the mid-year Budget debate that all foreign visitors now have a free COVID test built into their health visa.

Mr Pintard argued that the cost of this rapid antigen test represented a further $23 charge. When added to the $25 insurance cost, and $10 in administrative fees, he said the total cost of services provided under the health travel visa now amounts to $58 - a sum that exceeds the $40 fee by $18.

As a result, Mr Pintard said the Government - via Bahamian taxpayers - is now subsidising the return of US visitors to their homeland as it has to make up the negative difference between the health travel visa fee and the total cost. He branded this as “truly shameful”, arguing that such funds should instead be used “for the sole benefit of the Bahamian people”.

Dr Darville could not be reached for comment before press time last night, despite messages and voice mails being left. Chester Cooper, deputy prime minister, who has responsibility for the health travel visa via the Ministry of Tourism, also could not be contacted.

However, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office, speaking after contacting Mr Cooper, told Tribune Business “it’s absolutely not true” that Bahamian taxpayers are subsidising the departures of US tourists by part-paying for their COVID tests to comply with the Biden administration’s entry requirements.

Branding Mr Pintard’s attack as “a non-issue”, they added that the health travel visa fee had switched to cover the departure COVID test from the one taken by visitors staying in The Bahamas for five days or longer after the latter requirement was dropped several weeks ago.

“You can use that for your test to leave the country,” they added of the health travel visa fee. “The bottom line is that there’s no additional cost passed on to taxpayers. That’s absolutely not true. With respect to the five-day test that was done, all that was covered under the health travel visa. There’s nothing to pass on to taxpayers.”

The spokesperson also suggested that administrative costs had been reduced to the bare minimum, with electronic provider Kanoo no longer involved in providing the payment gateway between the health travel visa’s online portal and bank accounts. Kanoo, though, had just several weeks ago said it was still involved and operating on a month-to-month contract.

Mr Pintard, though, asserted: “During the wrap-up of the mid-year Budget debate, the minister of health [Dr Darville] revealed that all foreign visitors now get a free COVID health test built into their health visa. No doubt this was a surprise to most MPs and the public...

“In case you don’t understand, the $40 fee paid by the visitor for their health visa used to include just the cost of the mandatory insurance they were required to have, but now it also includes the cost of a COVID test as well. As a result, when the Government pays for the health insurance and now pays for the COVID test, the $40 fee paid by the visitor is insufficient to cover these costs.”

Adding the $23 COVID testing cost to the $25 that went to insurance; $10 for administrative costs; and $5 surplus meant that the $40 health travel visa has to cover a total $58 in costs, Mr Pintard argued, leaving an $18 deficit that had to be covered by the Government via taxpayers.

“If you are only charging the visitors $40 for a health travel visa, then every time a visitor gets a COVID test, that test is being subsidised by the Bahamian taxpayer to the tune of $18 ($40 minus $58),” the Opposition’s leader argued. “As a result, this government is now subsidising the cost of the tests for visitors to return to the US.

“They are not subsidising the cost of tests for Bahamians to travel to the US. They are not subsidising the cost of tests for Bahamians to travel home from the US.... This new policy of using health visa revenues to pay for foreigners to obtain a test to go back to the US is truly shameful given that they should really be using those revenues for the sole benefit of the Bahamian people.”

Mr Pintard argued that such “subsidies” were offsetting the savings that the Davis administration said it had generated when it eliminated the health travel visa requirement for Bahamians. However, some might argue that it is further aiding the tourism industry’s re-opening.

The latest health travel visa controversy comes after Prime Minister Philip Davis QC, and the Government, last week used the mid-term Budget to return to the attack on the issue. Referring to the Auditor General’s probe into the initiative, Mr Davis again questioned how Kanoo was selected and why it initially took some six months to remit the “surplus” funds in the health travel visa bank account to the Public Treasury.

These questions, though, had largely been answered in the Auditor General’s Report, which also praised the Ministry of Tourism and Aviation’s “vision” in establishing the health travel visa initiative to facilitate The Bahamas’ tourism re-opening at COVID-19’s peak. The speed with which it had to act to get the economy moving, though, likely meant that short-cuts were taken and established procedures not always followed.

One source intimately familiar with the health travel visa, and speaking on condition of anonymity, said unvaccinated visitors who required an in-destination five-day COVID test had been charged a $60 fee - not $40 - to cover the additional cost under the Minnis administration.

While only a small proportion of The Bahamas’ visitors fell into that $60 category, they argued that the Government - in dropping the five-day test - had failed to get its pricing correct with the inclusion of the return COVID test in the $40 fee.

“Even if you eliminate all the administrative costs or some of them, you are losing money,” the source said of the current health travel visa fee structure. “Even if you’re administrative costs are zero, $25 for the insurance and $23 for the rapid antigen test to go home, equals $48 compared to $40. You’re at a loss, and on top of that you have these administrative costs. It doesn’t work.

“The vast majority of people are paying $40. They should have let people pay for the tests to go back. If you want a test to go back, click on the website and you get upcharged. I’m sure the hotel industry is happy but the taxpayer is paying for it.” Based on 100,000 visitors per month, and 70,000 of that number availing themselves of a free COVID test, they suggested that it was potentially costing taxpayers a minimum of $560,000 per month.

Even if Kanoo was no longer involved, the Government would still have to pay another electronic provider to act as the payments gateway. Costs were also incurred in the supply of testing kits, the administration of the tests and by the health travel visa site’s programmer, the source said, meaning that some overheads were impossible to avoid.

A health professional, also speaking on condition of anonymity, yesterday backed this assessment. “It cannot be. It’s impossible. It’s impossible for all that cost to be covered. It is transparency, and then there is the Government subsidising tourists coming into our country for no reason,” they added.