The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Opposition MPs yesterday said the Bahamas’ latest slide in the world ‘ease of doing business’ rankings “flies in the face” of Government pledges, while “raising red flags” for potential investors.

K P Turnquest, the FNM’s deputy leader, told Tribune Business that it was “very disappointing but not necessarily surprising” that the Bahamas had dropped out of the world’s top 100 countries in the World Bank rankings.

With the howls of complaint from Bahamian and foreign investors getting ever louder, the east Grand Bahama MP said it was “very frustrating” that this nation seemed incapable of improving its business services and regulatory process.

He was backed by Loretta Butler-Turner, who described the Bahamas’ fall from 97th spot in 2014 to 106th this year as “amazing slippage”.

The Long Island MP said that improving the ‘ease of doing business’ was one of the best ways to ensure growth in a country that was “in dire straits economically”, as she slammed the Christie administration as ‘all talk and no action’.

Mrs Butler-Turner said the Government was “consistently crippling” the economy with its policies and inaction, and branded it as “business unfriendly”, while calling for the removal of bureaucracy and red tape.

Tribune Business revealed the World Bank’s 2016 rankings, which indicate that the Bahamas continues to ‘stand still’ while rivals make improvements and leapfrog ahead of it on regulatory efficiencies and systems.

The latest ‘nine spot’ slippage again suggests the Bahamas’ economic competitiveness is being eroded, which in turn sends the wrong signals to potential foreign direct investors.

Mr Turnquest yesterday backed this assessment, adding that the ‘ease of doing business’ findings, coupled with the Government’s intervention in the $3.5 billion Baha Mar dispute, created the impression of a jurisdiction held down by bureaucracy and interference.

“This analysis, coupled with the experience we’ve had with the Baha Mar project and some of the other things going on, doesn’t bode well for our reputation at all,” the FNM deputy leader told Tribune Business.

“Trying to attract business to a destination that seems to be making it more difficult, and intervening in private commercial matters, raises red flags for any investor.

“The world is getting smaller, much flatter, and competition for business is driving incentives from other jurisdictions,” Mr Turnquest added, “which is making it more difficult for us to attract new business.

“When you add in all the international regulations forced on us, it’s getting more difficult to attract business to international financial and business centres.

“We have to be more innovative, more efficient and, from the Government side, we have to provide first class, well regulated and simple services that facilitate investment.”

Mr Turnquest added that the latest ‘ease of doing business’ slippage, following consecutive years of decline, “flies in the face of what the Government has been saying, and the efficiencies they have been taking credit for to make it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises and international investors to do business”.

He pointed to the obstacles facing Bahamian investors, too, noting the complaints of former Deputy Prime Minister, Brent Symonette, about his 30-year wait for approvals to undertake projects in downtown Nassau while the Chinese seemingly obtained their permits in days.

Then there were the recent complaints by Michael Cunningham, chairman of the Government-sponsored venture capital fund, that it was “about 18 months behind” because the administration had not supplied it with funding for more than a year.

“We all continue to hear and experience the difficulties in getting projects approved in the Bahamas,” Mr Turnquest told Tribune Business.

“It is certainly very frustrating that we don’t appear to have got this process right.”

The FNM deputy leader said the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation (BCCEC) had been forced to launch its own initiative to help small and medium-sized businesses via its Help Desk.

While praising this, Mr Turnquest said it “doesn’t speak well” to the Government’s failure to implement the long-awaited Small and Medium Sized Enterprises Development Bill.

Asked what the FNM would do to improve the Bahamas’ ‘ease of doing business’ ranking, he said: “We need to cut down on red tape, and respond quicker to Business Licence applications, getting them done on time, and getting approvals and permits done in a timely fashion.

“We are very much an advocate for streamlining the entire process, and limiting the amount of Government involvement in the licensing process.”

Mr Turnquest, himself a former Grand Bahama Chamber of Commerce president, gave guarded backing to the BCCEC’s proposal to take over the Business Licence registry, suggesting there was “a role they can play in the process”.

Mrs Butler-Turner, meanwhile, agreed that the latest ‘ease of doing business’ downgrade was “really, really not good news” for the Bahamas.

“It speaks to what I’ve already said about this government,” she said. “They talk a very good talk, but when it comes time to put action to their talk, it’s horrible.

“I would have thought that with the Bahamas in such dire straits economically, they would ease the ease of doing business to grow the economy.”

Arguing that the Government does not understand business, Mrs Butler-Turner said the Bahamas had lost several projects due to investors’ inability to get an answer and close the deal.

Referring to one project in particular, which she declined to specify, the Long Island MP said the wait for an ‘approval in principle’ “dragged on” so long that the group behind it was eventually acquired by new owners who said “to hell with it’.

“There’s too much interference, too much bureaucracy and too much indecisiveness,” Mrs Butler-Turner said. “They’re [the Government] practically stepping over themselves and accomplishing nothing.

“What we’re doing in our country is not helping our country. Nothing is going to change until we strike out all the bureaucracy investors have to go through. And not just foreigners but Bahamians.

“Bahamians are having challenges getting approvals as well. This is not a business friendly government.”