The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas must not reinvent the wheel in creating a new investment promotion and approvals agency as envisioned by the government’s Economic Recovery Committee (ERC), a prominent banker warned yesterday.

Gowon Bowe, Fidelity Bank (Bahamas) chief executive, told Tribune Business that The Bahamas cannot afford to introduce new bureaucracies into the public sector. He argued that the proposed Invest Bahamas agency should be based on a reformed Bahamas Investment Authority that operates more efficiently as opposed to the creation of a new entity.

“In the budget communication there was a proposal called Invest Bahamas, and it is supposedly a separate body that should have some private sector and government collaboration to almost expedite what is currently done by the BIA,” Mr Bowe said. “To me I think we have to be careful about reinventing the wheel as opposed to actually oiling the wheel that we have to make it run more smoothly and efficiently.”

He added that “you can’t boil an ocean” in suggesting that it is impossible to focus on everything in the ERC report at one time. Mr Bowe said: “Even though the government did bucket these items into short and medium-term primarily, I think that what that evidences is that there really is the failure to adopt and implement the National Development Plan (NDP), which was looking out to 2040.”

With many of the ERC recommendations having already been included in the National Development Plan, Mr Bowe said the pathway outlined by the National Development Plan was “very doable” along with the road map on how to get it done.

“We need to have a very thought out, methodological plan that we progress through in a very mechanical manner, and have timely reporting back about the success of these plans or the lack thereof,” said Mr Bowe.