NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Tourism, Investments and Aviation Chester Cooper on Monday emphasized that the government will be “watching the tills” to ensure the VAT reductions on essential food items are fully passed on to Bahamian consumers.
Speaking in Parliament during debate on the Value Added Tax (Amendment) Bill 2026, Cooper said the measure is aimed at providing tangible relief for families struggling with the rising cost of living.
“The government is absorbing a loss in revenue to provide this relief” Cooper said. “We are cutting the tax, but we will also be watching the tills.”
He noted that consumer protection authorities will closely monitor retailers to ensure that the benefits of the tax reduction reach the public and are not absorbed into private profit margins.
“Our consumer protection agencies will be ruthless in ensuring that every single cent of this reduction is passed directly to the Bahamian consumer,” he said. “We must not allow public relief to be swallowed up by private profit margins.”
The amendment removes VAT entirely from a broad range of essential food items, including fresh chicken, beef, pork, goat meat, fish such as snapper and grouper, baby food, and hundreds of other grocery staples. The government has previously announced that the move will take effect April 1.
“These are not luxury items,” Cooper said. “These are foods that mothers and fathers work hard to give their children. This is real relief for real people.”
Cooper stressed that ordinary Bahamians experience the impact of taxation most directly at the grocery store.
“They experience it in the grocery aisles, silently calculating how far a hard-earned paycheck can stretch,” he said. “They experience it when a mother has to quietly put an item back on the shelf because the total has climbed too high.”
He framed the amendment as an exercise in legislative empathy, noting that while the government cannot control global inflation, it can act to ease domestic pressures on households.
“These are external headwinds not of our making,” he said. “But while we cannot control global inflation, we can control our domestic compassion. This amendment is doing just that.”
Cooper also contrasted the current administration’s approach to VAT with that of the previous government, which raised the tax from 7.5 percent to 12 percent — a 60 percent increase in one move.
“That’s a whopping 60 percent increase in one swoop,” Cooper said. “You cannot raise VAT by 60 percent and then come into this House pretending to be the defenders of affordability.”
By lowering VAT on essentials, Cooper said the government is easing the burden on households while stimulating economic activity and maintaining fiscal responsibility.
“At the end of the day, this debate goes beyond legislation,” he said. “It is about people — the grandmother stretching her pension, the young couple trying to start a family, and the grocery basket that must feed a household for a week.”
Cooper concluded by voicing his full support for the amendment, saying it demonstrates the government’s ongoing commitment to protecting Bahamian families from the pressures of rising living costs.
“This government heard the people,” he said. “And we are delivering relief, just like we promised.”
