The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Re: Tribune Business 26 April 2018 - Beneficial Owner Register

If there is one thing that we all know, it is that successive Bahamas governments have historically had enormous difficulty with the maintenance of anything. To wit, the huge number of abandoned government office buildings and the relocation of the various ministries civil servants to private sector rental premises.

Notwithstanding the Finance Minister’s protestations to the contrary, there is nothing that anyone could say, that would lead the public to believe that this enormously sensitive data will actually be maintained as such. This is just the nature of the beast unfortunately. Just like the other Tribune Business page headline today saying that corruption is in the very fabric of our nation.

Many years ago when I was employed in the IT department of a large Trust Company in Nassau, perhaps the first Mutual Fund in the world was launched and the Trust Company was the administrator. This fund, at the time, was predominantly marketed in Central and South America and therefore most of its shareholders were domiciled in, or were citizens of, countries in that geography.

At that time, and even in some of those countries today, investing money outside of the country was a criminal offence, and in many cases a guilty verdict could mean death. And so we in IT as well as almost everybody else, from the mailroom to the executive wing, were constantly reminded that the law of the country (Bahamas) regarded any disclosure of client information as a very serious offence. Except in extenuating circumstances such as a court order to do so. I am fairly certain too that we were required to sign letters acknowledging this “sacred” obligation.

There is no doubt, that even today, people who have assets domiciled in this country, could find themselves in very difficult circumstances, if their home countries were to discover that they had any assets domiciled here. I personally know of one case where a person, now domiciled in a desperate African dictatorship, had their name disclosed as being simply a director of a Bahamian company. This rolled out in the Panama papers. Our own Registry was recently hacked and the data obtained made public.

Given the foregoing, might I suggest that rather than the Government itself safekeeping the data mandated by this legislation, perhaps consideration should be given to having someone who has, and has had, long experience with client confidentiality, be charged with maintaining this register and providing whatever access is required by law to those people so entitled. Perhaps one of the Top Tier Legal Firms in the country.

Such a contract could be awarded on a five-year rotation basis perhaps, and by a completely open proposal offering. And just a thought – make sure the data is encrypted in case it is stolen somehow.

Nothing is foolproof, but the Government’s credibility is not at all high at the moment.

BRUCE G. RAINE

Nassau,

April 26, 2018.