The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

While Hurricane Matthew relief efforts will be “more flexible” than those for Joaquin, the Chamber’s chief executive yesterday warned that they would still seek to promote “a culture of compliance”.

Edison Sumner told Tribune Business that while the Chamber, and its Rebuild Bahamas partnership with Rotary, might slightly “relax” their approach and terms for providing storm-related assistance, they will not “turn a blind eye” to tax cheats and other forms of law-breaking.

“We will probably relax a little our approach,” he said. “We want to be more flexible and are prepared to assist where we can.

“But it doesn’t mean we’re going to turn a blind eye to persons and companies operating in the formal economy.

“We do want to get relief to persons as quickly as we possibly could, but we want to send a clear message that if you know you ought to be registered for VAT and are not, if you’re operating without a valid Business Licence, you are operating outside the scope of the law,” Mr Sumner added.

“We want to encourage businesses that we’re they’re to assist you as best we can, but we also want to promote a culture of compliance with the rule of law.

“If it’s not working for you we will do our best to amend the laws, but until that happens it’s important that businesses operate in compliance with the rule of law. If that’s not happening, we want to encourage businesses to get to that point of compliance.”

Mr Sumner said the Chamber and Rebuild Bahamas knew that many businesses, which acted as “the lifeblood of communities”, especially on the Family Islands, were “hurting a lot” in Matthew’s wake.

However, he said the organisations remained steadfast in their belief that all Bahamas-based businesses - whether ‘Mom and Pop’ stores or those generating millions of dollars in annual revenues - “operate within the confines of the law”.

“The Chamber supports businesses that support business,” Mr Sumner added.

He was speaking after a Rebuild Bahamas report revealed that just one in four business applications for post-Hurricane Joaquin assistance was approved because many enterprises were non-compliant with tax and other legal requirements.

Rebuild Bahamas, which is a joint relief effort supported by Rotary and the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation (BCCEC), assisted 48 businesses in the southern Bahamas islands devastated last year by Joaquin.

However, it said in a statement that applications from around three times’ this number did not qualify for aid because they did not have a Business Licence or were non-compliant with other government requirements.

The Ministry of Finance has suggested this will be less of a hindering factor for the Hurricane Matthew relief and recovery efforts, and is putting in place mechanisms to assist this - something confirmed by Mr Sumner.