The Tribune

A YOUNG couple, solid professionals with sound jobs and a dream for their future on the family island where they were raised, say with every day and every reply from government their dream is sliding farther away.

We’ll call them Monique and Sean.

Monique first heard about the news that inspired the dream in June 2021. That’s when the former government, the Minnis administration, made the announcement intended to drive family island commerce, reawaken a spirit of entrepreneurship and perk up economies suffering from pandemic shutdowns and brain drain.

Called the Special Tax Concessions for Andros and the Southern Islands, the incentive programme was part of the 2021-2022 budget that took effect on July 1, 2021. That was more than 400 days ago and there has hardly been a day that has gone by that either Monique or Sean has not tried to take advantage of the incentive to allow them to build a small café which they would oversee with the help of a salaried manager as they both kept their full-time jobs.

“The incentives will allow us to bring in construction materials, equipment, appliances and furniture VAT and duty free and that makes a huge difference to our overall budget, allowing us to turn out a better product and provide a better experience for the local community as well as visitors,” said Monique. Construction materials are actually duty free, but not VAT free on the island, while equipment, appliances and furniture command both forms of taxation.

“We applied on MyGateway, the government portal, and it asks you if you are applying as an individual or a business,” she continued. They applied as a business.

But for a business, it requires a business licence and an expiration date to move forward. So, for the type of business which is food handling, they cannot get a business licence until the building is built and inspected by Town Planning and Environmental Health. But that, of course, means they would have to build without the exemptions that fueled the dream when government made the offer.

“It’s like a circle that keeps going round and round and ends up back where it started,” she explains. “We are so frustrated. The idea was that by granting tax exemptions for a two-year period it would drive business, but if you can’t get a licence until you have the business and the building is inspected, how is it going to help you import the materials you need that you were supposed to be able to save VAT and customs duties on?”

The couple has called the Department of Inland Revenue probably at least 30 times, including many times when no one picked up an extension. They tried to find contacts, they sent emails and follow-up emails.

“There was never a response to any of them,” says Monique.

Someone suggested applying for a provisional business licence, so she tried that.

“But unfortunately, you can’t get a provisional business licence for anything to do with serving food because it is considered high risk.”

Frustration is not limited to the tax issues.

Getting the plans approved for the small 600 square foot building took three months, though the couple was kept updated. Most seating will be outdoors in a garden setting.

Sean and Monique eventually gave up trying to make the government’s incentive programme work for the construction of the café.

“On the family islands that these incentives were designed to help, there isn’t a lot of retail space people can lease. So if they want to open a storefront, people will want to build especially if there is some land that is owned by the family.

“So while we are ready to build and created the dream based on the incentives, it has been an ex-ercise in futility and frustration because the process just was not thoroughly thought through in my opinion,” she said.

Was the Special Tax Concessions for Andros and the Southern Islands another promising headline that sounded like a winner but instead of a plan, dissolved into rhetoric and campaign bluster or were there good intentions that just lacked follow through?

One young couple with a dream will build their café. They hope to benefit from the tax concessions for furniture and equipment. They will enliven the culture and add a slight boost to the economy on their island.

But they will pay out of pocket, take longer to complete and hope that next time a promise made is a promise kept.

VILLAGE ROAD IMPROVEMENTS

IF YOU travel the Village Road and Shirley Street area, you know that at peak hours in the morning westbound traffic crossing that intersection can be backed up for miles. In the late afternoon, east-bound traffic crossing the intersection of Village and Eastern Roads is equally impacted, sometimes stretching as far back as the Paradise Island bridge.

Sitting in traffic, burning gas at just south of $7 a gallon, is something no one should have to endure if there is a way around it and here is what my friend, an engineer, suggests:

Because the hold-up is caused by the lumps or uneven trenches of sand and rock in the road at the specific intersections, asphalt those two ditches for the time being. Each is only about 30 feet across. Reducing the need to slow down to a crawl of one mile an hour will allow traffic to resume a more normal flow.

It is not the work on Village Road, per se, that is causing the delays, a project that was long needed and appears to be well organised except for unannounced interruptions to power and utilities on the side streets. It is simple a few trenches and the cost of a temporary asphalt fill will not make a dent in the coffers of those carrying out the project but will allow for fewer delays and will reduce air pollution and public frustration while adding to productivity. The road will eventually be all asphalted, a temporary layer can only help.