The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A newly-appointed Cabinet minister yesterday said the Davis administration’s first objectives will be to “decelerate” the Government’s rate of borrowing and improve the ease of doing business.

Michael Halkitis, minister for economic affairs, added that the Government will also seek to develop a credible debt management strategy to “stabilise the country’s finances”.

“Our partners in the financial services industry, the banks etc, are telling us that what we need to do is come with a good, credible debt management strategy,” he added. The national debt stood at $10.356bn at end-June 2021, with a projected fiscal deficit of $951.3m set to add significantly to that in one year’s time.

Despite the task ahead, Mr Halkitis added: “So, first orders of business: Stabilise the finances, as far as the revenues, and put in place a debt management strategy, so that we can decelerate the rate of borrowing and begin to move towards a more balanced fiscal situation.”

His ministerial areas of responsibility include “digitisation” and the “ease of doing business”, along with elements of public finance and budgeting.

Mr Halkitis, who was minister of state for finance under both Perry Christie-led administrations, will be working closely with the still-unnamed minister for finance.

Turning to the ease of doing business, he added: “What we need to do is firstly engage all of our partners in the industry. All of the stakeholders, business people, the legal community and government to see what these hurdles are.”

He added that the private sector always complains about the time it takes to get permits and approvals, so there needs to be a “holistic approach”.

Underscoring the negative connotations from hearing consistently that doing business in The Bahamas is “difficult”, he maintained that to combat this negative perception all stakeholders must come together to discuss how to fix this and incorporate solutions into his ministry’s strategy.

Mr Halkitis added: “When we speak of the ease of doing business, the pandemic has forced a lot of Bahamians to become entrepreneurs, so a lot of people have done it by necessity.

“When we talk about digitisation, that creates opportunities when we talk about the ease of doing business. More people are by choice becoming self-employed, and so we have to look at ways to support them and digitisation does it throughout the islands.”

The Government has also recalled Simon Wilson, financial secretary, from gardening leave where he had been placed by the Minnis administration for close to four years. He will replace acting financial secretary, Marlon Johnson, with both men now working to ensure a smooth transition.

Tribune Business was informed prior to the 2017 general election that the Free National Movement (FNM) planned to replace Mr Wilson with Mr Johnson, but both this newspaper and its contact dismissed the suggestion.

The Minnis administration sought to transfer Mr Wilson to the Central Bank and, when he objected, simply sent him home on full pay. This newspaper and many observers felt the move was at the very least premature, as Mr Wilson was still working to bed in initiatives such as the Revenue Enhancement Unit, which he launched in 2016 after Hurricane Matthew, and real property tax reforms via Tyler Technologies.

A Moody’s report said the Revenue Enhancement Unit garnered $90m in additional revenue during its first six months, an average of $15m per month. Taxpayers also had to contend with thousands of dollars being spent on paying full salaries to two financial secretaries over a four-year period, although this is no reflection on either Mr Wilson or Mr Johnson.