By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

THE Government has tabled changes to the Commercial Enterprises Bill to confirm it applies equally to Bahamian-owned firms, justifying the legislation as essential to “breaking the status quo”.

K P Turnquest, the Deputy Prime Minister, told Tribune Business that the Bahamas “has to take some risks” if it is to break the low-to-no growth/high unemployment cycle it has been locked into for the past decade since the 2008-2009 recession.

Expressing “surprise” at the level of opposition to the Bill from politicians and some in the private sector, Mr Turnquest said critics failed to realise they were protecting jobs and businesses that largely do no exist.

Urging them to “take an objective look” at what the Minnis administration was seeking to accomplish, the Deputy Prime Minister acknowledged that the urgency with which the Bill had been passed in the House of Assembly reflected the Government’s concern about the need for rapid action to address the Bahamas’ economic and fiscal prospects. “Yes, we are very surprised,” Mr Turnquest told Tribune Business of the concerns, which have been expressed by both former prime minister, Hubert Ingraham, and the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation (BCCEC) as well as the political Opposition.

“Really there’s nothing here but making the jurisdiction more attractive to investment; not just foreign investment, but investment. Because of a lack of information and understanding on what the Bill is intended to do, they have taken exception to various clauses.

“But if they recognise the list of entities involved are really niche kind of entities involved in specialisations, which we don’t currently have operating in the Bahamas or are under-represented, then the rest of it makes sense.”

The Commercial Enterprises Bill is focused on industries that were targeted by the FNM’s campaign manifesto, such as the Grand Bahama ‘technology hub’, plus knowledge-based sectors viewed as significant jobs/growth drivers that will help to diversify the economy, attract home Bahamians living abroad, and produce export/foreign exchange earnings.

Mr Turnquest said the Government had tabled “an amendment that speaks” to the concerns raised by the Chamber of Commerce, which had called for the Bill’s benefits to also be made available to Bahamian-owned businesses in the same industries on the grounds of equal treatment for all.

The Bill’s application to Bahamian investors was not clear in the original legislation, but the Deputy Prime Minister told Tribune Business: “Another important thing to recognise is that Bahamians don’t have to invest $250,000 to access the benefits.

“The benefits are available to them automatically. There is an amendment that was tabled. Pick up a copy of the amendment.”

With the Bahamas having endured another recession between 2013-2015, and per capita GDP having fallen since the turn of the century, Mr Turnquest said the Government had taken a calculated “risk” by thinking out-of-the-box to come up with innovative legislation to signal that the Bahamas is both ‘open for business’ and committed to improving the ‘ease of doing business’.

“We’ve had zero or negative growth, so the status quo can’t remain,” he told Tribune Business. “The status quo is not good enough. We have to do things differently. We have to take some risks, but these risks are far outweighed by the benefits if we’re successful in what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Former prime minister Ingraham criticised the Bill’s $250,000 minimum investment threshold as too low, arguing it would enable foreign investors to drive out Bahamian entrepreneurs, while also slamming the failure to tie work permits to the creation of Bahamian jobs.

While respecting Mr Ingraham’s viewpoint, Mr Turnquest replied that critics “ought to take another look at what we’re trying to accomplish, and take an objective look”.

He added: “We can’t take away a job that doesn’t already exist. We can’t introduce competition to an industry that doesn’t already exist..... This Bill, it isn’t us and them. It’s how to grow the economy overall, and we are intent on stimulating domestic economic sectors.

“To the extent that there are businesses here in these industries, it is not the Government’s intent to introduce competition to them. We’re looking for new investment in new sectors of the economy that gives us the opportunity to expand our economic base and create new ownership and career opportunities for Bahamians.

“We believe we have low hanging fruit here and can achieve some wins in attracting this kind of investment. We recognise our regional and international counterparts are doing some creative things, and in order to be in the game and compete we have to do likewise,” Mr Turnquest continued.

“We have to make the enabling environment conducive, we have to improve the ease of doing business, the efficiency with which the Government operates and executes approvals. This is trying to get an enabling environment favourable to foreign investment and Bahamian domestic investment.

“It’s not about facilitating foreign. It’s facilitating growth in underserved or underdeveloped industries. To the extent it’s foreign or domestic, we want to facilitate them because we want to facilitate growing these industries and the economy.”

Opposition leader, Philip Davis, has pledged that the PLP will repeal the Commercial Enterprises legislation when it is elected to government - a statement that Mr Turnquest criticised as “chasing away investment with negative comments”.

He argued that the PLP leader’s statement undermined the Bahamas’ traditional political stability and continuity, and said it was a far “clearer” example of talking down the economy and “speaking out of turn” - something the Opposition has criticised him for.