The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

An ex-Chamber of Commerce director yesterday urged the government to rapidly “dust off” the National Development Plan, arguing: “It is 100 percent the solution to the issues we are facing.”

Roderick Simms, pictured, who previously chaired the organisation’s Family Island division, told Tribune Business he was at a loss to understand the Minnis administration’s reluctance to use a bi-partisan “playbook” that contained a “road map” for resolving the country’s ‘ease of doing business’ woes and other problems.

Pointing to the outcry over The Bahamas’ latest slippage in the World Bank’s ‘ease of doing business’ rankings, Mr Simms said individual commentators were focusing on single or collective issues without accounting for the bigger picture.

He argued that no one problem, such as the roadblocks and structural impediments to the smooth conduct of commerce, could be fixed in isolation and instead needed to be addressed through an all-encompassing, holistic approach - something that the National Development Plan attempted to do.

Warning that “all sectors” of the economy and public sector were coming under “increasing pressure”, Mr Simms said “75-80 percent” of government corporations were likely in the same condition as the blackout plagued Bahamas Power & Light (BPL).

Bemoaning the absence of “visionaries” able to understand the economic and social trends that The Bahamas is facing, and what is to come, he added that the government needed to “flush out” civil servants holding posts since the 1970s and 1980s who were now blocking the rise of young graduates possessing skill sets essential for the 21st century.

Taking the “ease of business” debate as an example, Mr Simms said the response to the latest World Bank rankings setback had largely focused on individual topics, such as productivity, the ease of starting a business or developing a land registry.

“We all have parts we are familiar with or would like to see improved,” he told Tribune Business, “but the country’s at a state where all systems have to be improved. One system touches on a another and cannot be improved in isolation.

“The National Development Plan concentrates on four pillars, and touches on the broadest components of reform. All of these are inter-connected, all of them are dependent on one another, none of them are independent of themselves.....

“Every time something happens everyone provides feedback on what should and should not be done, but we have a road map. The road map is the National Development Plan,” Mr Simms continued.

“It’s good that everyone speaks their mind but there are certain sectors in the country that are at a critical state, and we need a plan to address the whole country. We cannot touch one part of a complex issue and solve it by itself. It’s economics, social. It’s all interdependent.”

A veil of silence appears to have settled over the National Development Plan and its fate in recent months, with virtually no mention being made of it by the Prime Minister or members of his Cabinet.

Much work was done on developing the Plan under the former Christie administration, and the effort was designed to be non-partisan, with the then-FNM opposition and other parties brought into the fold so that their input was incorporated and to ensure it survived changes in the political cycle.

It is unclear whether the National Development Plan has been discarded because it is perceived as a “PLP creation”, but the secretariat that was formed to develop it appears to have been largely disbanded. It was headed by Dr Nicola Virgill-Rolle, who was subsequently moved to head the National Insurance Board (NIB) as its director.

“As far as I know the Plan is complete and just sitting there,” Mr Simms told Tribune Business yesterday. “The idea was to use it as a yard stick for improving the country as a whole, and for country-wide reform.

“I would hope it didn’t disappear into a black hole. I would hope it’s being read somewhere, looked at and being contemplated as coming into play to deal with all the moving parts. I hope that someone has thought about it, considered it, dusted it off and is looking at it as the next playbook.

“It is the solution to the current dilemmas we are facing today. It is 100 percent the solution to the issues we are experiencing today. We need to enact the plan and hit the road. It’s going to be painful, there’s going to be some changes, but at the end of the day the country will be in a better position,” he added.

“The National Development Plan is the key. We already have a plan, but I don’t understand what’s going on. We’re reluctant to use this plan even though both parties were instrumental in developing it. I sat at the table with Dr Minnis at some of the meetings.

“I don’t care which government the plan started under; it doesn’t make a difference. We have to think about country now and move it forward. I hope the different sectors involved with the plan come forward and be a champion of it, but it’s quiet. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, don’t have to go to someone with a crystal ball. We have a plan. Let’s use it.”

The National Development Plan represented the first ever co-ordinated effort to plan the Bahamas’ development in a systematic manner using empirical data and analyses, while also obtaining input from private sector and civil society organisations.

Labelled ‘Vision 2040’, the National Development Plan aimed to break with the Bahamas’ past ad-hoc approach to national growth by setting a clear path towards a more sustainable future.

It also set out a ‘road map’, containing measurable goals and objectives for the Bahamas to attain, so that this nation’s progress towards achieving its development targets can be judged according to set timelines.

Vision 2040 focused on four main policy pillars - the economy, governance, social policy and the environment, both natural and built - in its first 400-page draft, which was publicly disclosed.

Mr Simms, pointing to the increasing pressures on the Bahamian economy and wider society, said The Bahamas had suffered from numerous missed reform opportunities. He cited as one example the failure to rebuild Ragged Island some two years after Hurricane Irma’s passage, arguing that it could have become a model for renewable energy and green living which could now serve as a template for Marsh Harbour’s reconstruction.

“We missed the boat on banking,” he added. “We think banking is changing, but it changed 20 years ago and we keep missing the boat. We need visionaries, people who are creative and have foresight.

“We don’t do a good job in collecting data to understand the trends we are passing through and what is to come. We know what our problems are. We don’t need someone from the outside to tell us that; we just don’t want to address it.

“Take BPL. The BPL situation is at a critical level. Why do we know that? We use electricity every day. There are other government agencies in the same state, but because we don’t use them every day we don’t know it. We saw the direct impact of the BPL meltdown, and I would say 75-80 percent of government corporations are in the same state.”

Describing The Bahamas as “stuck”, Mr Simms added: “We don’t have perpetual movement of people into and out of the system. The persons graduating from college today have learnt new methods and tools for solving and confronting problems, but we have people still in the system from the 1970s.

“There’s no flushing out and the country is stuck. That’s why we have this brain drain. If people don’t see the way forward in this country they will not return. Government corporations with the same people from the 1970s and 1980s, we have to flush them out and find ways to move people out so those with new skills and tools come in from college every year.”