The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune,

I would appreciate my letter being published as an open letter to the Deputy Prime Minister.

Dear Sir,

The government is thinking about taxing non-voters a little bit more.

The obvious benefits encouraged previous governments to do the same so that taxes, fees, and duties in areas where they fall primarily on visitors have ramped up over the years.

The problem is that foreigners don’t have to pay Bahamian taxes. They can just stay away, and spend their money elsewhere.

The result has been that while world and regional tourism has increased considerably over past decades, it has not in The Bahamas. The Bahamian economy, and therefore wages, profits, and government income, has stagnated in real terms.

Similarly popular reasoning also led previous governments to protect Bahamians from foreigners working in The Bahamas.

While it is indeed true that foreigners are taking jobs that Bahamians could do, the problem is that the people who are putting Bahamians out of work are overwhelmingly outside the borders of The Bahamas, and therefore cannot be controlled by immigration officers, work permits, or duties that are intended to provide Bahamians with work.

Ironically, all these efforts not only don’t work, but they harm Bahamians by giving them a false sense of security, raising their cost of living, and making them less competitive.

The nature of the Bahamian economy is that it is dependent on a totally free world market in which every foreign buyer decides for him or herself on how and where to spend their money. This not only affects those working directly in the tourism industry, but also includes seemingly unconnected businesses that survive from the money tourism workers spend, and everyone else who is paid with tourism derived taxes, i.e. teachers, nurses, and other government workers and contractors. Everyone is in the tourism business, and there is no viable, or foreseeable economic alternative.

Sovereignty only provides the ability to make our own decisions. It does not offer any protection in the medium to long term from competition in an export dependent economy like The Bahamas that will live or die by the value of its services in the international markets in which it operates.

Justice, fairness, and what is reasonable are irrelevant. Improving a little, or a lot, are meaningless terms. The only measure that counts is the value for money of our product compared to what is offered by our competitors.

The Bahamas must stop considering itself an island with a very wide moat around it. It is not.

Pressure for taking the easy way out, and providing immediate gratification to voter groups, must be weighed against the damage that traditional policy has done to the country. If well intentioned decisions are actually working against the national interest why would we keep doing the same thing?

To break out of this long running vicious circle, and the related squabbling over crumbs, the focus needs to be firmly placed on growing the economy, and that can only be done by upping our national game in comparison to the countries that are taking our customers. It means teamwork, and a laser like focus on the only metric that counts; international competitiveness. This has to be the everyday message, and twice on Sundays.

There must be no timidity, or being thrown off course by accusations of heartlessness or anti-Bahamian policies because there is nothing more heartless and anti-Bahamian than failing to produce the national income to finance good healthcare, properly educate our children, and to create the job opportunity to raise a family on.

Leadership has to provide the direction and co-ordination to a brighter future. A future that can only be built on a deliberate positioning of The Bahamas in the competitive world of which it is an integral part. Only then can every citizen know what needs to be done, and act accordingly. No leader has the power to protect his people; he can only lead the people to protect themselves.

FRIENDLY ADVICE

Nassau,

February 15, 2018