By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Super Value's principal yesterday said it was "music to my ears" to hear the government's WTO chief negotiator state The Bahamas is almost certainly not joining under this administration.

Rupert Roberts, who has vehemently opposed becoming a full World Trade Organisation (WTO) member, told Tribune Business it "comes as a welcome relief" after Zhivargo Laing told an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) organised seminar that The Bahamas was "95 percent unlikely" to join under the Minnis administration.

He added that whether The Bahamas signs on to the global rules-based trading regime's overseer should "be an election issue", giving the electorate the ultimate say on whether this nation embraces or rejects the WTO.

Mr Roberts, though, voiced doubts that any political party would win if it included full WTO membership in its campaign platform, arguing that "it would be defeated" in either a general election or referendum on the matter.

Reiterating his opposition to joining, the Super Value chief argued that fully opening up this country's economy to foreign competition would result in a "loss of Bahamian identity and sovereignty" as the world rushed in.

"That's music to my ears," Mr Roberts told Tribune Business of Mr Laing's pessimistic prediction. "I think that the government will make the right decision if it has chosen not to pursue it [WTO accession] in these terms.

"Let it come up as an election issue and see where it stands with the people. I think if we had a referendum on it, it would be defeated. I don't think the government could win on joining the WTO. They wouldn't win an election on it, and they wouldn't win a referendum on it. Nobody seems to be for it.'

Mr Roberts was reacting after Mr Laing, in a presentation to the IDB's forum on private sector competitiveness, said it was "95 percent unlikely there will be any movement toward joining WTO in this term" under the Minnis administration after the Government became nervous about the negative reaction from significant segments of the private sector and wider civil society.

The former Cabinet minister added that if The Bahamas did not become a full WTO member under this government it was unlikely to do so for another decade - something that would extend the accession process to 28 years from when this nation first indicated its interest in joining in 2001.

However, it was unclear last night whether the Government shares Mr Laing's pessimistic assessment about The Bahamas' accession prospects and if it accords with the current policy direction.

Elsworth Johnson, minister of financial services, trade and industry and Immigration, who has ministerial responsibility for the WTO accession, declined to comment when contacted by Tribune Business about Mr Laing's comments on the grounds that he was in Brazil and had not seen/heard them.

However, another government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said of Mr Laing: "He's the chief negotiator, he's been employed by the Government, and has not made mention of it to us."

The Minnis administration had originally set end-2019 as the date to complete negotiations for The Bahamas' accession to the WTO, with the move ultimately set to be ratified by the latter's members at their June 2020 forum.

That deadline will inevitably be missed, but Mr Johnson told this newspaper in July that such targets were "purely aspirational" and did not have to be met at all costs. He said he had been advised even the WTO itself felt the accession timeline set by The Bahamas was "extremely rigid".

Mr Johnson also pledged that The Bahamas would not become a full member if the terms "are not in the best interests" of the country, reiterating the position set out by his ministerial predecessor, Brent Symonette, while adding that accession negotiations will continue "at a pace that benefits the Bahamian populace" rather than being wedded to a concrete date.

Mr Roberts, meanwhile, said he remained unconvinced about the merits of joining WTO despite helping to finance the Oxford Economics study that was produced for The Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation (BCCEC).

That report suggested full WTO membership would produce a net economic benefit for The Bahamas, but was no panacea or cure-all for this nation's economic ills, and needed to be combined with internal reforms that remove structural bottlenecks to growth/competitiveness and improve this nation's "ease of doing business".

"I'm still not convinced it's in The Bahamas' best interests to join WTO even after that study," Mr Roberts told Tribune Business. "I just don't see the advantages, and there could be more disadvantages than advantages. There was no real advantage that I saw from that.

"If was to our advantage to join WTO, why didn't we join 18 years ago? Are we dumb, stupid or what? Why did we hesitate then? I'm going to ask the question: Why did we hesitate now? Because it's not in our best interests.

"Maybe the Government has seen the majority of people don't think it's in our best interest to join. I think it will come as welcome relief to the nation that they're not joining this term. Then it can become an election issue. If this [joining WTO] was pending it should have been an issue last election, and I don't remember that coming up."

Suggesting that WTO should be decided at a general election, not a referendum, Mr Roberts cited several reasons for why The Bahamas should not sign on.

"I think the world would march in, labour would march in, and The Bahamas would lose our identity, The Bahamas would lose our sovereignty, and then The Bahamas would become just another part of the world," he told Tribune Business.

"There's other people saying that won't happen, but I think it will. The outsiders that talk about joining talk so freely without any Bahamian identity. It's worrisome that we lose our identity, we lose our sovereignty."

The Government, though, has frequently argued that WTO membership will not facilitate the free movement of labour, meaning the ability of foreign nationals to enter The Bahamas to live and work. Such a concept was associated with the CARICOM Single Market & Economy (CSME), which The Bahamas has not signed on to, whereas WTO is concerned with free trade in goods and services.

And Mr Symonette, the former minister, and others in the administration have also frequently asserted that WTO membership will not result in an influx of foreign companies and multinationals, pointing out that the Bahamian economy is already greatly liberalised - especially on the service side - and that the Government will still be able to approve who comes in via its "horizontal commitments".

Meanwhile Paul Moss, the long-time anti-WTO activist, told Tribune Business that Hurricane Dorian's devastation had also helped "put to rest" any possibility that The Bahamas will become a full WTO member before the Government has to seek re-election in 2022.

Given the mammoth task of rebuilding post-Dorian, he argued that all the Government's energies will be devoted to this because it has not shown an ability to multi-task and can only focus on one major issue at a time.

"They don't have the time to focus on WTO, amend laws, educate the people and negotiate," Mr Moss told Tribune Business. "That's not happening. It's quite difficult to do all these things. The hurricane has certainly put that to rest simply because it's so devastating. It's something they've never seen before, and they're trying to get their arms around it.