By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A prominent businessman yesterday criticised the Government for “blindsiding” the private sector with new and increased fees, warning this would be counterproductive at a time when the Bahamas “needs job growth more than ever”.

Slamming the “clandestine” way in which many of the 2013-2014 Budget’s revenue-raising measures had been slipped in, Dionisio D’Aguilar, Superwash’s president, said the resulting uncertainty would cause businesses to further pull back on investment and expansion plans.

Acknowledging that the Government needed to raise money, Mr D’Aguilar said its Budget was effectively “taking money from the productive sector” and job creator - the business community - and redeploying it into the “unproductive sector”, namely the public sector.

And the former Bahamas Chamber of Commerce president also publicly called on the Christie administration to let the private sector know if any other new or increased taxes were set to show themselves in the next few weeks.

“I don’t like the clandestine nature in the way the Government is releasing this information to the business community,” Mr D’Aguilar told Tribune Business. “It’s coming as a surprise, and I don’t like the way they’re not consulting us.

“Clearly, the Government is sending a message that the business community needs to pay more taxes and more fees, and while I agree that the Government needs to raise more money, the process should be a little more collaborative.

“What business people like, and what businesspeople thrive on, is our ability to plan, and in order to plan we need knowledge and information.”

Citing Business Licence fees as an example, Mr D’Aguilar said it would “be very simple” for the Government to specify the steps businesses needed to fulfill - NIB letter; corporate registration fee payments; letter from Department of Environmental Health (in his case) and pay the fee.

Yet it had failed to do so, and Mr D’Aguilar said his business and others were “kind of stuttering” in the whole process.

Among the fee and tax changes/increases many in the private sector were unaware of, until they were implemented on Monday, the first day of the 2013-2014 fiscal year, was an ‘Environmental Levy’ now being charged on imports supposedly harmful to the environment or difficult to safely dispose.

Other fees introduced by the 2013-2014 Budget are a $50 per head, per hour fee for Customs officers to inspect something at “a place they do not normally attend”.

And, “outside the normal eight-hour shift at a seaport”, Customs is to be paid a fee of $30 per hour, per head, although Prince George Dock and cruise ships docking in Freeport are to be exempt.

As for pleasure vessels cruising in the Bahamas, boats less than 35 feet in length have to pay $250 for a cruising permit, and those with a greater length must cough up $400. And vessels carrying more than three passengers must pay a $20 per head Passenger Tax.

“My question to the Government: Is there anything else we need to know about, and if so, let us know now. Stop popping up with these new taxes. Let us know everything upfront. Is there another one coming on Monday?,” Mr D’Aguilar told Tribune Business.

“The Budget came out a month ago. Why didn’t you tell us then? It’s like a secret world at the Ministry of Finance, where you have a bunch of breakwaters who sit down and say: ‘What can we do next?’ We should have open and transparent government.”

The Superwash president added: “With this government you just don’t know what it’s going to do. With this Budget process, everybody in the business community sits on the edge of their seats come May and June, and waits with bated breath: What are they going to do now?

“Consult, let us know. We know the Government needs more money, but it also needs to create jobs. When you blindside businesses with these fees, these new taxes, and don’t let them know where they’re headed, businesspeople get disillusioned and uncertain. They’re not in the right mind to expand their business and create jobs.”

The end result, Mr D’Aguilar said, was that “growth in jobs is going to be dampened”, resulting in the Government having to pay more money to fight crime and on social security benefits.

“Government needs businesses more than ever before to create jobs,” he told Tribune Business, adding that the Christie administration - through its Budget - was signalling it was relying on Baha Mar to carry the load.

“Let the private sector create the jobs, not the Government. It’s what undermines the business community and hurts the country no end - the Government taking money from the productive sector of the economy, and putting it in the unproductive sector.”

Flagging VAT as a prime example of the uncertainty inhibiting the business community, Mr D’Aguilar said: “We’re kind of emotionally preparing for it, but there’s a lot of confusion.

“The Bahamas government is notoriously slow at making decisions on how things are going to be, but the business person needs to plan. But that’s not in the Bahamian DNA; we’re a last minute people, and boy does the Government emulate that.”