NOONE DISAGREES THAT TAXES ARE DESPERATELY NEEDED TO REDUCE THE RUNAWAY NATION DEBT...INTEREST...FINAMCING COSTS....UNPAID BILLS...!!!!!!!!!!

What is unacceptable is that despite claims of widespread curruption...victimization...slackness...noone has yet gone to jail for the leak from the hole in the bicket to stop !!!!!

What is unacceptable is why the poor (pronounced pore) whichin unless you pore you dont understand the struggle ...sufferin....grinding poverty....that the 75,000 to 100,000 Bahamians ate going through. And why should they carry the load.....when the rich, connect, buddy, collecting regular paychecks and many govt agencies losing money continues to be propped up fron the sweat of the pore.

Start selling these govt agencies stead of tryinng to save yinna family friends who gets appointed to dese Boards they ate appointed to.

When businesses struggle they offload assets to gain cash to survive,pay bills...many Bahamian businesses do that.

The real issue has nothing to do with taxes alone, but government WASTE. There are still many government departments hemorrhaging tens of millions of dollars per year. We all have to bite the bullet together, if the government wants to raise taxes, fine, but they must prove at the same time that they are managing our money properly. They are not creating an infrastructure to improve efficiency while eliminating waste. This is where they have failed consistently!
But I agree with everything you have said!

Our problem is not the VAT but that your leadership appears to be a disaster.

I agree ..... It appears all we are going to ever get from the ruling elite is some hot air about the last regime's financial improprieties and then some more taxes. Really not even sure what the point of a 'Transparency Act' is if everyone that has ever considered running for government in this country can be 110% confident that there is absolutely ZERO accountability regardless of what laws are in place and/or how badly they behave !!

This government needed to throw some people in jail and then raise taxes. They needed to set up a corrupt practices tribunal and cancel all of the crooked contracts the PLP set up the day before the elections instead of winging about them in public and then sticking it to the people to pay them all off in full.

The real disaster is that the FNM will get voted out and the criminals will get back in and they will piss away all of the benefits of these austerity measures and painful choices they are putting on us now.....they will promise the people free lunch and then they will say we need more taxes

You are so right. This FNM Administration is squandering away all the goodwill and mandate they had from the people to make hard, meaningful changes for the betterment of this country. Nothing in this budget reflects that, it is lazy, simply raising taxes and no cuts. Why is there no date for the sale of these unprofitable govt corporations? Not one, not bahamasair, BEC, water and sewerage. Just a never ending horizon of bleeding the treasury and the Bahamian people dry. Why is there not a commitment to reduce the bloated civil service by at least 5%. Nothing, just the easy way out raise taxes, which regardless of what they say will increase the burden on the poor. Vat is a regressive tax, the rich will not feel this but the poor will. Very disappointing so far in this government and yes because of their cowardice to make hard cuts in expenditure we will vote them out and put in the even worse, corrupt criminal PLP. We have suffered from an unmitigated succession of incompetent, cowardly leadership.

AND YOU SUGGEST THEY START CUTTING WHERE. . .NOT WHERE YOU GET YA THINGS FROM I ASSUME!! I DO AGREE THAT VAT IS A REGRESSIVE TAX. . .HOW ABOUT INCOME TAX. . .ON A SLIDING-UP SCALE. . .THE MORE YOU MAKE THE MORE YOU PAY!!

really who in their right mind would buy Bahamasair or BEC ,,no one .A deal has already been signed w Shell North America to come in and build a new power plant ,, supply better power at lower rates ,,Shell NA will collect the revenue to recoup their cost and make a profit ,,but someone buy BEC or Bahamasair ,,lmao there is nothing to sell but debt and way too many employees lol

Ah ha! Now we are getting wise.

When are we going to reduce expenditures? There is no sign of that in the financial projections from the ministry of finances for three years out. This is unacceptable, personal emoluments ( civil service salaries) have increased 40% in the last 7 years. Does anyone feel that this is justified, has service from any government ministry improved even at all to warrant this? We have to reduce the bloated civil service. Getting our debt under control can not simply be raising taxes, that is lazy and easy. The pact we have with this government is that if you raise our taxes the civil service must be reduced. Period. If this does not happen I will help vote this government out that I presently support. Minister Turnquest promises this will happen, but in his own projections personal emoluments increase over the next three years, so he must be lying to the Bahamian people.

But is not that what we were calling this government heartless for last week. . ."sending them poor hungry people home for nothing"? Doc them will just have to do what needs to be done. . .everybody wants progress but no one wants to pay for it. . .

Is this best the dimwitted Doc can come up to justify the disastrous decision he made with Turnquest to increase VAT to 12%. This bozo is now trying to play the same 'scare card' that Christie played when he introduced VAT at 7.5%. I remember well 'chicken little' Christie singing the sky is falling to scare the hell out of us into accepting VAT. And no sooner was VAT introduced then Christie turned around and said: "To hell with reducing annual deficits and the national debt, we need to garner more political support for the PLP by growing the size of the public services sector so that it can serve as a social safety net that will hopefully buy more votes for the PLP." And so Christie effectively flushed our VAT dollars down the toilet rather than introduce much needed austerity measures to reduce the out-of-control costs of our bloated and largely non-productive civil work force. Now we see the dimwitted Doc and incompetent Turnquest trying to pull the same 'chicken little Christie' scare tactic on us in a feeble effort to try justify the Minns-led government's foolish proposal to jack up the VAT rate to 12% without having done appropriate modeling and sensitivity analyses that would almost certainly reveal the foolishness of their decision. The high VAT rate and exemptions proposed will result in serious complexities and tax collection leakages of one kind or another, including non-compliance by aggrieved taxpayers who will perceive the additional VAT to be most unfair. And then there is the very real risk that our still very sluggish economy will be thrown into a great recession as a result of the additional consumer dollars that will be sucked out of the economy. Such a recession combined with the exemption and non-compliance leakages will in turn result in the government receiving much less than the $400 million they hope to receive from the 4.5% hike in VAT to 12%. But perhaps most important of all, we now all know with great certainty that Minnis and Turnquest, like Christie, will take the politically easy road which means our additional VAT tax dollars will be used to grow the size of the public services sector even more in a most foolish effort on their part to both raise $400 million and 'buy' as much voter support as possible. We know this because Minnis and Turnquest have steadfastly refused to announce a detailed austerity program aimed at significantly reducing the costs of our bloated government and civil work force. WE MUST NOT ACCEPT THIS MOST FOOLISH INCREASE IN VAT NO MATTER HOW MUCH CHICKEN LITTLE SQUAWKING AND CRYING MINNIS AND TURNQUEST WILL DO. BOTTOM LINE: THESE TWO BOZOS ARE NOW TRYING TO PLAY THE 'SCARE CARD' TODAY IN MUCH THE SAME WAY THE 'RACE CARD' WAS USED TO MANIPULATE US FOR SO MANY YEARS.

EXACTLY. FULL STOP.

Comrades Minnis and Dr, Duane, didn't want wait one whole year since 10th May 2017 to think we have found new revenue stream goldmine with all poor and near poor peoples bodies stacked up six high at the Prince Margaret Morgue to have imposed a $700 fee for the families seeking a release their love-ones remains. The grim truth is under heartless Imperial red shirts cabinet - if you have no $700 fees - you cannot collect no bodies... da root cause recession straight across the funeral homes industry... yet an untold number former politicians have been laid to rest at the expense people's public purse... yet no red shirt even called out Ronnie Butler's name when he passed on.... but not Craig Flowers, who stepped up plate for his and the country's Dear and Much Beloved Comrade Ronnie.

PLP should be banned from running again. So many of them should be in jail, their party should be struck off the list like the UBP. With the PLP gone, the FNM should call an election to seek a new mandate from the electorate to raise VAT, because they campaigned against VAT and have lost their moral authority.

These two fellas (Minnis and Turnquest) are about as incompetent and dishonest as they come - their lying mouths 'talk the walk' but their political feet refuse to 'walk the talk'. Neither Turnquest nor Minnis are open to viable alternatives because there is only one alternative and they have absolutely no political appetite for it. Rather than introducing a well laid out plan of serious austerity measures aimed at significantly reducing the grossly over-bloated size of our largely non-productive public services sector, Minnis and Turnquest opted to take the same easy road of additional taxation that previous governments have taken, thereby electing to simply kick the can down the road. The only problem is, our nation has now run out of road down which the can can be kicked by incompetent and/or cowardly politicians like Minnis and Turnquest. The draconian hike in VAT to 12% will likely be the final nail in our nation's coffin and give rise to the IMF taking charge of our destiny within the next couple of years. And we all know what that means for us - think Argentina, Venezuela, etc.!
Remember, Minnis and Turnquest did what they did with very little notice to taxpayers and no prior consultation with private sector interest groups, aside from possibly the likes of VAT worshipper Gowan Bowe. Turnquest and Minnis are quite content to tax us as they wish, without any intention of reducing public sector payroll and pension benefit costs. In fact, it won't be too long now before Minnis and Turnquest propose huge increases in the salaries and pension and health benefits of all parliamentarians. Yes indeed, these two incompetent dimwits will happily kick us taxpayers where it hurts most even when we're already hurting real bad to the point of being down and out for the final count.

Looks like many of your pre-election visions are coming to pass, truly sadly.

Question: Why is it that many African leaders are unpatriotic and corrupt? (https://www.quora.com/Why-is-it-that-ma…)

I'm not sure whether all of them are unpatriotic, but I know for a fact they're all corrupt. No exception whatsoever. I'll leave the argument for patriotism for another day. For now I'll focus on corruption which is endemic and is on the brink of destroying the continent.

One of the reasons African leaders are very corrupt is because they are afraid of going back to being broke or becoming average citizen after they leave power, which set a precedent for them to embezzle. The corruption is prevalent that they steal so much wealth that their next five generations can't exhaust. The sad part is that vast majority of the stolen wealth is kept in the western world. Many of them never live old enough to enjoy their stolen wealth. Or they end up in exile never to see much of their stolen wealth again. In order to curtail this particular sentiment, this award was created. The biggest award of its kind in the world. Yet, they've gone 2–3 years consecutively without having a winner.

Another reason is because corruption is condoned by average citizens, especially within tribal lines. Nigeria is one good example. If a Yoruba leader steals from the nation’s coffer today, some people of his tribe will defend him on the ground that leaders from other tribes do the same thing too. In essence, it's justifiable. Ignorance and poverty have imprisoned our minds that when giving a bag of rice and a few thousands, we're willing to lay down our lives for a politician or leader. I know a lot of Africans who strongly believed that if you become a president and you did not become very rich after you leave office, you're forever cursed. Everyone is in line to get their turn to steal when opportunity arises.

I personally believe African leaders are corrupt because the people are indifference to their actions. In other words we allowed them to be corrupt. They're not going to change and will not anytime soon. It is only in Africa that we turned to God to change our country or leaders because every problem for us deserves spiritual solutions. Sometimes I wish we could leave religion aside for a while and held our leaders accountable for their actions. But I don't see that happening anytime soon. So why are African leaders so corrupt and unpatriotic? Because Africans allowed it.

And how do you explain the many predominantly non-African countries that have been raped, pillaged and plundered by their non-African leaders, including many countries in Central and Eastern Europe, and South America, over the last two centuries or so? Corrupt leaders have been known throughout time to thrive in poorer countries, or countries more vulnerable to the wrong kind of radical political ideologies under the pretense of religious beliefs, where anarchy can more easily take hold and allow a corrupt dictator to rise to power. Believe me, the problems you speak of are not confined to Africa and African leaders, even in today's world.

If the former party gets back in, we will definitely lose the country Doc.

The problem is that Bahamians don't know who they are, that they are Africans. Because they don't know their true identity, they are repeating the same mistakes impoverished Africa has made -- tollerating corruption and allowing the guilty leaders to run free. If Bahamians realized who they were, they would realize the propensity for corruption to destroy their country and take massive steps to prevent this from occuring in The Bahamas.

You could level the same remarks to the U.S. and some EU leaders......

I can only assume BahamaPundit that you are not a black Bahamian of African heritage and that you believe many of the problems in the world today are somehow attributable to Africans or descendants of Africans. That being the case I feel sorry for you because you yourself have a problem that your mind possibly does not let you see.

Ma Comrade Red Shirts MP's, grow some bullocks and pass a law making it mandatory for a balanced budget then it wouldn't matter what party held power.... with jail time prevent government overspending. It's time balance colony islands books and make it law keep them balanced... some Canadian provinces with budgets far greater than ours MUST by da law balance their budget... works in some US states too, We have return back thinking like colony islands -and stop playing on world scene...which mean our elected politicians and their public purse henchman's will no longer need jet set around the globe.

All dis talk from Roc eid Doc is worser than expected cause he should know by now dat the Bahamian people done knows dat money is needed to pay dese runaway national debt, interest, bills.people done knows dat.
It is only the way to go about it is the problem an whichin way is best

What is evenin worser is to have any talk bout lose election cause dat bring no end of odder problems ....like we needin to have confidence to assure foreign investors to come cause we needs FDI...an people here want stability....this country was built thrpugh plenty struggle...amd the mostest biggest parliament ever 35 to 4 .done have the mandate to go find the bestest solution to govern fer the pore people.....aint no time fer no tantrum an wanna take yinna ball an go home...pick yaself up ..dust off wipe ya bruise an play ball!!!.

Are the Comrades at ministries education and finance close introducing requiring that all teaches at all levels be licensed at annual license fee of $500 .... and making it a requirement that all current teaches be made pass certain newly designed qualifications retirements.

That is a joke surely. Are you proposing that teachers pay a license to work?Maybe in regard to your second statement it would be better to get rid of all the Cuban teachers who have no real interest in anything but going home with as much cash and electronics as possible, Fire some of the incompetent Principals, advertise senior positions where qualified Bahamians have a chance of promotion as opposed to having the position already filled because of cronyism . Good classroom teachers often languish with no hope of promotion simply because their face does not fit.

“If you look at the game - rock, paper, scissors, there are times when paper covers rock, and rock breaks scissors, so a position that you would have held doesn’t mean that you don’t believe that at all.

“It basically means there is a new reality of which you’re now cognizant and you have to make a decision..." However painful for me, this is not so difficult because I sometime have to tell people I have to cut their leg off, or take out one of their lungs or perform surgery that may result in death in order to save their life. This country - we’re at that moment.”
--Duane Sands, Minister of Health, Bahamas

Folks, this is not double-speak or incoherent babble like the last leader and leaders. This is simply saying reality bites!

And I am saying, "Wake up Bahamians!" I would rather follow the leader that is trying to rescue the country rather than save his own political hide.

This is not about people selfishly begging millionaires for money; this is not about tucking away fortunes in tax-haven countries; this is not about selling Bahamian crown land and pocketing much of the proceeds; this is not about using your political office to shake down other greedy individuals. This is not even about sweeping the mess under the rug and saying, we'll let the other crowd deal with it. This is about country!

In times of crisis, true leaders are called upon to make tough decisions, not popular ones!

Minnis is absolutely, 100% right! Right now, let's save the country; worry about the next election later. That's another problem we have in our country--everything is just too politicized!

For you to say in reference to Minnis that you "would rather follow the leader that is trying to rescue the country rather than save his own political hide" is a laughing absurdity. But saving his political hide is precisely why Minnis took the easy road of more taxation rather than implementing desperately needed austerity measures.

Of course, we can agree to disagree. Time will tell.

This would beg the question as to whether these actions put us on a path to avoid disaster. I mean what if we lose the election AND create a disaster?

We just finished saying, my friend, this is not about an election. At this hour, we have to throw of the red and the gold. We must come together as Bahamians to clean up a mess. I know that is easier said than done--especially in a place like the Bahamas. But you have to trust the collective wisdom of the nation, too. The Bahamian people are smart, discerning, and wise. They know who is looking out for their best interest. This is why transparency, integrity, and communication are so important. Do what we have to do and let the people make up their own minds four years from now.

We cannot afford 4 more years of a Christie-like government and that precisely what Minnis's leadership now appears to represent for us!

Well I dont have on no red green or yellow. Every side is equally dismal. Collective wisdom of who??? Nobody, I mean nobody from any corner has anything good to say about this move, they're saying its a contradictory jumbled proposal. **Gown Bowe the most even tempered man since Job walked the earth called it asinine.** Turnquest says some products are exempt and ?Johnson says they're zero rated. It's a mystery why Minnis appointed Johnson to this post. From May 10th I stated that KP would need a very skillful technocrat to help him in that ministry and Minnis got a PR man. So what does he get in return? Lots of PR trying to explain nonsense.

I'm entirely in your camp when it comes to those who consider Marlon Johnson to be most ill-suited and definitely unqualified to handle the normal every day tasks of the Office of Financial Secretary. Minnis's appointment of incompetent Johnson to this highly paid government post of great import and significance to the Bahamian people was perhaps the most foolish thing Minnis did early on in the first year of his administration. The consequences of this foolish appointment have already been devastating on many fronts and could prove fatal to the prospects of a second 5 year term for Minnis. As for Gowan Bowe, I'm glad to see he's at least re-thinking some of his earlier erroneous positions which were likely borne out of naivety to politics and too much infatuation with the public limelight shone on him. We can only hope is now thinking straight without love of distraction.

i said from the very beginning the appointment of Marlon Johnson as acting Financial Secretary made no sense.Ask persons from a certain international organization their opinion of his performance so far.He does not have the expertise,knowledge or experience for that position.

It's time for THE PEOPLE'S PARTY. No doctors, lawyers, crooked business persons or gazillionaires need apply.

No gangsters or uneducated people either. Sounds good, but it doesn't leave a very large pool of people to choose from.

The answer to these financial problems that have accrued over years is one that cannot be solved by tax rises by themselves but what would make me feel better is some of the persons be they Ministers or Permanent secretaries going to jail. There has to be a paper trail where large wasteful projects have failed like the 7 million + pile of hospital curry in Palmetto Point.

Re: Well_mudda_take_sic

In response to your assertion that I am likely not black, you are wrong. I am a big fan of Juan McCartney's The Revolution. I believe in order to do better, we must deconstruct ourselves and fix our weaknesses. I love The Bahamas, but I hate that this beautiful country has reached junk bond status and that politics has been hijacked by the race card. I want the best for this country only. Nothing more or less.

Juan McCartney has an agenda ........ like every talk-show host.

That aside, ALL Bahamians must share the burden now.

Juan McCartney may have an agenda, that doesn't mean the budget isn't a jumbled mess. A friend of mine believes they picked it up wholesale from an analysts review without any sort of localized critique, so have no idea of it's implications, hence the contradictions.

Juan is just a spoiled bully who can't take last. . .he predicted that doc will be a devastated failure as PM and the more doc survive and ignore Juan the more bitchy and juvenile Juan becomes. Hell, he will not take calls or text from anybody who don't agree with him. . .that joker is no intellectual. . .the amount of informational and reasoning gaffs he makes on his show is something! "This my show. . .I'een gatta speak with nobody who attacking me"! He need to grow up and act like a man. . .not like some whinny spoiled brat. . .thinking he is the smartest kid on the block!!

Of course he has an agenda. He wants to make this country better and so do I.

Who doesn't have an agenda?!

Re Licks2. Nobody is perfect, but I believe Juan deserves a national award. The important contribution he has made is that he has brought "critical thinking" to the masses. I have lived here for ages but never seen a person that has been able to instill a modern mindset in our population. He is a huge asset to our future as a nation, and we should be very grateful that he came along.