‘Country loses nearly $100m yearly to alcohol and tobacco smuggling’

Prime Minister Philip 'Brave' Davis. Photo: Dante Carrer

As of Thursday, February 22, 2024

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune News Editor

rrolle@tirbunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Philip “Brave” Davis said officials believe the country loses nearly $100m yearly through alcohol and tobacco smuggling.

“We are committing significant resources to combat this source of revenue loss,” Mr Davis said during his mid-budget contribution yesterday.

He said in the last three months, the government seized over $400k in cash and close to $1m in alcohol during a “large alcohol smuggling operation”.

He also revealed that the Ministry of Finance launched a Maritime Revenue Enhancement Task Force in July 2023 to combat “excessive revenue loss in the maritime industry.”

He said: “This task force is strengthened by the Ministry of Finance’s collaboration with the Royal Bahamas Police and Defence Forces; Customs, Immigration and Port Departments; the Department of Marine Resources; and the Bahamas National Trust. This collaborative effort seeks to recover and collect delinquent revenue and create and enforce new ways to retrieve revenue loss in the maritime field.

“Let me give you just one example: We discovered a foreign yacht company with more than fifty vessels, which had not paid any fees for two full years. Over the past six months, the Task Force has carried out “Operation Revenue Fortification”, which began in Bimini and has expanded to Abaco, the Berry Islands, and the Exuma Cays.”

Mr Davis said an online platform was introduced into port departments in Abaco and the Berry Islands and the Administrator’s Office in Great Harbour Cay, enabling these offices to receive credit cards, bankers’ cheque payments and cash.

He said the task force collected $1.2m in maritime revenue in the first three months of operations.

SP 2 months, 1 week ago

PRIME Minister Philip “Brave” Davis is focusing on peanuts while BILLIONS literally pass through our fingers annually!

The Bahamas CONTINUES TO LOSE BILLIONS ANNUALLY in the tourism sector because the PLP and FNM never had any "real" understanding of resort destination tourism.

A 1980 airport tourism exit survey quizzed visitors asking them their biggest complaint of their Bahamas vacation. The number one complaint was NOT ENOUGH TO DO IN NASSAU

Three decades, 8 million arrivals to date and a spanking new $300M port later, the number one complaint remains NOT ENOUGH TO DO IN NASSAU and with the lose of ALL LIVE BAND NIGHT CLUBS AND NATIVE SHOWS there is far less to do in Nassau today than there was in 1980!

People vacation with disposable income and expect to SPEND those funds visiting places in resort destinations. The PLP and FNM are blind to the huge potential of encouraging Bahamians to create venues for tourist to spend in resort destinations of the Bahamas.

Tourist come to the Bahamas with a preset amount of funds destined to spend in the resort, just as Bahamians travel abroad expecting to return home broke. However, it is the resort destinations responsibility to make it possible for the tourist to part with his money.

Regional competitive resort destinations like Orlando, Key West, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Jamaica, Mexico, and The Dominican Republic tourism products are prime examples of how tourist resort destinations position themselves to "MAXIMIZE IN-RESORT SPEND".

Comparing these destinations to Nassau, and Freeport is like night and day!

Which tourist resort destination anywhere else in the world closes downtown at 6:00 PM? We literally have tens of thousands of visitors here DAILY looking to find and SPEND on the Bahamian experience, but cannot do so.

Tourist are willing to spend pockets full of money in the Bahamas but we are unable to "collect it from them".

This is the absolute height of ignorance and stupidity!

If the government had any sense they would actively encourage a goal of tourist resort spend of $250.00 each. The 8+ million projected visitors would translate to $2,000,000,000 in the Bahamas this year alone!

Davis needs to stop standing around chasing pennies and simply encourage Bahamian entrepreneurs and businesses to create ways to collect money tourist are dying to spend in the Bahamas.

Regardless, stupid still does as stupid is!

bahamianson 2 months ago

How can a man and a cuban woman get arrested for prostitution and you have some shady action next to the pice station opposite the Point hotel? Why are the lazy , police not raiding that place every now and then? Are they treating it like the crooked numbers boys? What do the police do all day? Do they go on their phones and gossip?