NASSAU, BAHAMAS — The Bahamas must seriously address the country’s debt problem and be restored to a path of sustainable economic growth, Exumas and Ragged Island MP Chester Cooper urged yesterday.
Cooper, the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) deputy leader, while contributing to debate on the mid-year budget report, stated: “First, we need to clearly understand the situation. Next, we need to properly communicate the dire state of the economy to the Bahamian people.
“We need a comprehensive debt schedule showing payments due, both principal and interest on both foreign and B-dollar outstanding debt. And we need a corresponding schedule showing where funds would come from to meet the required payments.
“We’ve never defaulted before and it would be tragic to do so now. This is why we recommended a debt management committee with a private sector component during our COVID-19 economic mitigation plan.
“So, we have to understand what new revenue measures we can source beyond borrowing. We need to undertake successful debt restructuring negotiations with private and international organizations.”
Cooper added: “We need to seriously consider how we manage certain government assets — including land, buildings and public corporations, including the Bridge Authority. We should examine transferring the remainder of our shares in the telecommunications sector — Cable Bahamas, BTC, Aliv — directly to the Bahamian public, perhaps via a Sovereign Investment Fund as we recommended in April 2020 in our COVID-19 economic mitigation plan.
“We need to get serious about property tax collection, and other existing taxes. We need realistic estimates for completely opening the tourism sector and extracting the incremental income that could be applied to debt management.”
Cooper slammed the Minnis administration for worsening the impact of the pandemic.
“The continued closure of the domestic economy with early curfews that stifle the domestic economy and domestic tourism is making matters worse. Our recovery at this time is clearly dependent on tourism,” said Cooper.
“While we all acknowledge that the pandemic has wreaked havoc on our financial position, there is no escaping, in my opinion, that we are in a worse off position than we should be because of the poor financial efforts and lackluster governance of this administration.”
He also accused the Minnis administration of “foolishly and recklessly” raising the rate of value-added tax (VAT) from 7.5 percent to 12 percent, arguing that the VAT hike raised inflation, making the burden on those less fortunate even more onerous and slowed the economy.
Cooper called for greater focus on small and medium-sized businesses and also a plan to spur Bahamian professionals and technicians “to build large and unicorn companies that greatly expand international investment, international exposure and new industry opportunities, particularly in areas such as finance, professional services, ICT and specialty manufacturing”.
“We need to ensure the focus on PPPs (public-private parternships) moves us forward with regard to securing ownership, value chains and appropriate taxation in critical areas such as food security, infrastructure development and maintenance and sustainable fisheries activities,” said Cooper.
“We need a vision for supporting the transition and growth of the Bahamian-owned segment of the hospitality industry. We need to internally control poverty through land use, better intra-island and inter-island transportation and energy costs.”
