Prime Minister Perry Christie
By AVA TURNQUEST
Tribune Chief Reporter
aturnquest@tribunemedia.net
PRIME Minister Perry Christie said the massive leak of confidential offshore documents, known as the “Panama Papers”, has further undermined the embattled financial services industry of the country and wider region.
Mr Christie noted that although the country had stringent regulations, it was still too early to predict what impact the international scandal will have on international financial centres like The Bahamas.
“The leak of the ‘Panama Papers’ has undermined the sector even further although it is much too early to offer any forecast as to what the fallout will be for international financial
centres like the Bahamas.
“In the meantime, however,” he said, “I offer the re-assurance that the Bahamas has one of the most stringently regulated banking systems in the world. We adhere to international best practices and we rigorously apply the highest standards of vigilance and oversight in relation to money laundering, terrorist-funding, and criminal abuses of the financial system.
“As far as financial and corporate service providers are concerned, they are closely regulated, subject to audits and inspections, to ensure that they adhere to the strictest know-your-client (KYC) protocols.”
“Moreover, we have engaged with the wider world to enhance co-operation in tax matters. We have entered into well in excess of 30 tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs) and we have affirmed our commitment to the implementation of the common reporting standards regime for automatic information exchange, albeit on a bilateral basis, in full conformity with the choices made available by the OECD.”
Mr Christie pointed to the historic data leak as the most recent challenge facing the Caribbean’s financial services industry during his remarks at the Oppenheimer & Co seminar at the Melià Nassau Beach resort on Friday evening.
The Bahamas was ranked as the third most popular tax haven used by the Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca, the source of the data leak that has rocked the world.
Millions of documents were leaked by Mossack Fonseca to a German news agency, which contacted the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) to help analyse the data. Mossack Fonseca is said to have played a major role helping clients use offshore centres.
Data from the leaks reveal information about current and former heads of states and relatives/friends of country leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin. Since reports on the leak were published earlier this month, Iceland Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíd Gunnlaugsson has resigned amid widespread public outrage over allegations that his family hid millions in an offshore account. He became the first major casualty of the Panama Papers.
Last week there were calls for British Prime Minister David Cameron to resign after it was revealed that his father avoided taxes for his investment fund by moving it to the Bahamas and employing scores of Bahamians, including a lay bishop. Yesterday Mr Cameron became the first British leader to disclose his tax returns in an attempt to defuse the row.
On Friday, Mr Christie explained that the financial services industry had not fully rebounded from the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent global recession. While the region’s twin economic engine, tourism, has improved with the rise of the travel industry, and significant infrastructure boost by foreign direct investment in hotel construction. However, Mr Christie said financial services remained plagued by job outsourcing, the withdrawal of international financial institutions and attacks by international regulator the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
He forecast that these ills would continue in the near term.
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Comments
lkalikl 8 years ago
F$%^ you Christie! The Save the Bays leak is your government's doing. The Panama Papers are beyond our control, but your pathetic PLP is doing untold damage to our reputation as a serious financial services destination. Rebuke your worthless, lying, thieving and corrupt MPs you worthless piece of political f$%^ing garbage! Begone! Resign! F$%^ the PLP!
realfreethinker 8 years ago
What a piece of shit Christie is. He worrying about the damage the leak in Panama will do to us and his cohort Fritzgerald is doing the same thing Like you said F..k the plp
ThisIsOurs 8 years ago
Lol (but not so lol). Declare the leakers a national security risk and add them to the list of persons on that complaint to the speaker.
Seriously it's time they realize invasion of privacy is a serious threat. Fitzgerald should be publicly sanctioned for his utter and absolute recklessness
sheeprunner12 8 years ago
Has anyone seen how both the Bahamian brand of Tourism and Banking are in decline???? .......... the question is: What is our government going to do to recalibrate our economy (re-focus) to get it to grow at least 2% to 3% per year??????
HarryWyckoff 8 years ago
The government is doing everything it can....
..... to amass as much personal wealth as possible through any and all corrupt means available so that when the shit hits the fan, they'll be so rich off of our backs they can just sit back and watch the country crumble into poverty form afar.
It's a brilliant plan.... for them. Not so good for us.
sheeprunner12 8 years ago
Yep ...... time to change course and find alternative industries .......... more eco-tourism and light manufacturing based on our natural resources ...... STEM and entrepreneurship development should become the focus of our senior high schools (but who is going to recalibrate our nation????) ....... Does our National Development Plan speak to such a re-calibration?????
observer2 8 years ago
...how boring, any word from Toggie and Bobo?
ThisIsOurs 8 years ago
Lol. House of Cards
SP 8 years ago
..................... Bahamas DOES NOT need any alternative industries ........................
Why in the name of GOD would the bahamas want to consider alternative industries when tourism has long been touted as the worlds largest industry?
http://www.thenational.ae/arts-cultur...">http://www.thenational.ae/arts-cultur...
What Bahamas actually need is a government committed to building and advancing the country as a tourist resort destination that benefits "all Bahamians" instead the usual Cabinet under the table back room deals designed to only really benefit a handful of Cabinet ministers.
Competing regional resort destinations copied Bahamas tourism model, ran it like a real business, and blew past the Bahamas in short order.
Dominican Republic is the best example as they only recently begun pursuing tourism in 1970 when Bahamas was the number one destination in the region. Copying Bahamas tourism business model, Dominican Republic quickly became the number one resort destination in the region.
http://feo-english.weebly.com/tourism...">http://feo-english.weebly.com/tourism...
Secondly, unlike successive Bahamas governments policy of broad exclusion plus friends, family and lovers, Dominican Republic INVESTED IN ITS PEOPLE TO DEVELOP A TOURISM PRODUCT, and used every opportunity to include as many local entrepreneurs and business's, truly making tourism everybody's business......THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF THE PLP AND FNM!
http://kiskeya-alternative.org/public...">http://kiskeya-alternative.org/public...
Thirdly, the Dominicans "Ideas for Good Practice" mapped a working plan of Making Tourism Count for the Local Economy in Dominican Republic.
http://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/f...">http://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/f...
The Bahamas needs to reset our inefficient, corrupt, political system with alternative leaders working for the national interest. Not alternative industries!
sealice 8 years ago
As if the PLP wasn't doin enough to undermined the industry.....
Well_mudda_take_sic 8 years ago
"NO!" Mr. Christie. Our country has been undermined by your own incompetence and the corruptness of the PLP government that you lead.
licks2 8 years ago
Just think now. . .our government "shot across the bow" of big and monied international "interests" when the house leak occurred!!!
I believe that act send a shock wave throughout the shady financial world of cross border tax duckers. . .causing their respective governments to "peek into" at least the STB activities between the Bahamas and USA!
AND LO AND BEHOLD, THE BIGGEST "SHADY" LAW OFFICE WHICH HAPPENS TO HAVE "PLENTY" DARK INFORMATION THAT HAVE THE BAHAMAS "ALL MIXED UP" IN WORLDWIDE HIDING OF MONEY HAVE A JUMBO SHADY INANCIAL INFORMATION LEAK!! THIS NEVER HAPPEND BEFORE. . .BUT TWO WEEKS AFTER WE ALLOWED THEM TWO MPS TO LEAK IN THE HOUSE, THE PANAMA LEAKS "PUNCH" A GIANT HOLE IN THE BAHAMAS THAT "PULLED" IN THE BRITISH PM. . .WHO WILL RESIGN OF COUSE!!
WE GOT MIXED UP INTO A MAJOR INTERNATIONAL "BLACK EYE" TWO SHORT WEEKS LATER. . . MAYBE AS PAY BACK FOR "MESSING" WITH ONE OF AMERICA'S "BIG WIG" POLITICAL DONORS! THIS JURISDICTION IS FINISHED AS A HIDING PLACE. . .THANKS TO OUR HOUSE LEAK!
I BELIEVE IT IS LIKELY THAT ONE OF OUR "BIG FRIENDS" TO THE NORTH FIRED THEIR 60" BATTELSHIP DECK GUN BACK AT THE BAHAMAS. . .WHO SHOT A .22" PEA SHOTTER FROM THE HOUSE AT MR. HAM AND THEN PLEAD HOUSE PRIVILAGE!
OUR GREAT "FRIENDS" THEM TO THE NORTH OF US MUST HAVE SAID. . .YEA. . .HOUSE PRIVILAGES AYE. . .HOUSE PRIVILAGES THIS IN YA SOCKS!! BLAMMMMMM!
THE BAHAMAS HAS EFFECTIVELY BECOME A "NO FLY ZONE" FOR TAX DUCKERS AND OTHER PERSONS WHO WANT TO HIDE "THINGS" FROM THEIR RESPECTIVE GOVERNMENTS!! Or EVEN FOR LEGITIMATE "HIDERS" OF OTHER THINGS THEY DON'T WANT ANYBODY TA SEE!
THEM MPS FORGOT THAT THERE IS INFORMATION WHICH SHOW THAT THE CIA AND OTHER "GROUPS" AT TIMES WAS HIDING "THINGS" IN THE BAHAMAS TOO. . .(sic, Iran-Contras, Vatican Bank Scandal cases etc.). THESE MPS DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY DID WITH THAT SILLY MOVE!
SOMEONE TELLING THE BAHAMAS. . .THE PLP GOVERNMENT IN PARTICULAR. . .SIT SMALL TILL YA NAME CALL. . .AND SMACK DAB IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BAHAMAS' BIG IDB BANKERS MEETING. ONLY THE BOBO AND TOGGIE STORY GETS BETTER THAN THIS!!
THIS IS A NEW MOVIE FOR THEM HOUSE MPS. . .BAHAMAS HUSTLE II!
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