The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamian economy has “gone as low as it can go”, with the Chamber’s chief executive yesterday conceding that progress on improving the ‘ease of doing business’ was not happening “as fast as we’d like”.

Edison Sumner told Tribune Business that the business community’s “vexing concerns” had to be addressed by a Government-private sector partnership if the Bahamas was to develop a “thriving” economy.

He identified price controls; the need for companies to present Tax Compliance Certificates (TCCs) to obtain payment from government agencies; Value-Added Tax (VAT) refunds; and the new Customs Management regulations impacting the transportation/logistics industry as being among the Chamber’s primary issues to address.

“At this point in time, it’s not an easy economy to work through,” Mr Sumner told Tribune Business.

“We believe at the Chamber that we’ve seen probably seen the bottom of the economy, and that it’s gone as low as it can go, unless there’s something adverse that happens that has not been forecast.”

He added: “We hope that we’ve seen this bottom, that the economy has bottomed out, and that we can bounce back and rebound from this.

“It’s going to require some work from the Government, the Chamber and private sector to develop the kind of economy that causes business to thrive and grow.”

Acknowledging the numerous impediments to the smooth conduct of business in the Bahamas, Mr Sumner said the Chamber had been due to meet senior Ministry of Finance officials, plus the head of the Inland Revenue Department, yesterday afternoon.

“We are making progress, but not at the pace we’d like,” he told Tribune Business. “We are having discussions, and expect to see positive outturns on these initiatives very soon. These are what the business community has identified as some of the vexing concerns for doing business in the country.”

Top of the Chamber of Commerce’s agenda were the issues of VAT refunds, which numerous businesses complain are delayed or take too long, plus the demand for companies to produce TCCs to obtain payment for goods and services already rendered to the Government.

Tribune Business revealed earlier this week how Wilmac’s Pharmacy, the business owned by the family of Democratic National Alliance (DNA) leader Branville McCartney, was unable to obtain payment from the National Insurance Board (NIB) because of delays in obtaining a TCC through the Government bureaucracy.

As a result, even though NIB is contractually obligated to pay Wilmac’s within one week for drugs supplied under the National Prescription Drug Plan (NPDP), Mr McCartney revealed his firm was only able to gain payment for early June late last week - a seven-eight week wait.

Mr Sumner yesterday expressed hope that the Chamber’s patient lobbying efforts would encourage the Government to modify its TCC and VAT refund regimes.

He added that the BCCEC had also met the Comptroller of Customs two weeks ago to discuss the new fines and fees regime that accompanied the 2016-2017 Budget.

Ocean shipping and air cargo airlines are especially concerned about the changes to regulation 147 in the Customs Management (Amendment) Regulations.

This requires all cargo planes to submit their C7 general declaration forms to Customs, detailing all freight items they are bringing in, to Customs one hour before touching down in the Bahamas.

While this will incur a $75 processing fee, any C7s submitted less than an hour before arriving in the Bahamas will be subjected to a $2,500 charge.

Air cargo operators will also be subjected to a $5,000 per item fine for every “prohibited or restricted good” found on board. A fine equivalent to 25 per cent of the value will also be incurred for every item not declared prior to landing in Nassau, impacting couriers and both air and sea logistics/transportation operators.

“The Chamber expressed some of those concerns,” Mr Sumner said of the meeting with the Comptroller.

“We have made a commitment to work with the Customs Department to ensure all those impacted by the new Customs policies know what they are, and where there are areas of concern we addressed those fully with the Comptroller.”

Mr Sumner added that the same issues had also been taken up with Simon Wilson, the financial secretary. He said: “We are satisfied that they are taking the Chamber’s point of view seriously, and taking it into consideration.

“We saw where some of the recommendations made in our pre-Budget meeting made it into the Budget. We are satisfied we are representing the views of the private sector at large properly.”

Mr Sumner said the Chamber was likely, within the next fortnight, to release a paper detailing what the group has been doing, and its advocacy accomplishments on the private sector’s behalf.

He added that its directors had also held their first-ever retreat in North Andros last weekend, where they “hashed out the strategic agenda for the Chamber over the next five years”.

Some of Mr Summer’s comments appear to have been a riposte to Nassau Institute executive Rick Lowe, who in a letter to The Tribune accused the Chamber of being “missing in action” when it came to standing up for the private sector.

“Meetings were supposed to have taken place between the Government and the representatives of the business community (Chamber), but nothing has changed and there is no report from either party,” Mr Lowe said.

“Regretfully, the Chamber appears to have fallen back into the mode of government policy facilitator instead of fulfilling its role as the representative of the business community.”