World bank drops Bahamas 'ease of doing business' ranking

AS THE World Bank has dropped The Bahamas a spot in its ease of doing business rankings, Deputy Prime Minister K Peter Turnquest has called its assessment a "misunderstanding".

The Bahamas has dropped one notch in the ease of doing business rankings - from 118 to 119 out of 190 countries.

The annual ranking is a benchmark examining starting a business, getting electricity, registering property, protecting minority investors and paying taxes.

The Bahamas is said to have made progress in four of these areas, with "registering property" being the only one where the country has failed.

The report said: "The Bahamas made property registration more costly by increasing the stamp duty on property transfers."

The report also pointed to The Bahamas having high compliance and the costs associated with preparing documents.

Last year, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis said he was going to make ease of doing business a top priority for the government and that the Ministry of Finance was spearheading an inter-agency working group to make business faster, cheaper and better.

"Ease of doing business is a serious issue that has support and attention at the highest levels of government. At the Ministry of Finance, we spearhead the inter-agency working group that is focused on driving change across government based on the focus areas assessed by the World Banks' Global Ease of Doing Business Ranking," said Mr Turnquest, when last year's rankings were published.

The Bahamas had shown marginal improvement each year, having ranked 121 in 2016, 119 in 2017, 118 in 2018, but now ranking 119 again in 2019.

Last year, the government announced that they formed a "working group" aimed at aggressively increasing the ease of doing business rankings. The group included representatives from the Ministry of Finance, the Office of the Prime Minister, the Office of the Attorney General, the Department of Inland Revenue, the Customs Department, the Department of Public Works, the Central Bank of The Bahamas, the Registrar General's Office and the Securities Commission.

Mr Turnquest said about this year's drop: "We had a full year of intensive improvements in legislation to address the main points with us being marked down in the rankings in previous years."

The government passed the Companies Amendment Act 2019 in April, designed "to support the growth of equity markets by providing for the enhanced protection of minority investors primarily as it relates to conflicts of interest, related party transactions, shareholder governance and matters connected thereto. It seeks to bring these aspects of the Companies Act in line with international best practice".

Mr Turnquest pointed to the need to speed up building permits and also the speed at which electricity is connected along with the reporting of outages and said his government is "working on those". He also added: "We have been trying to streamline the process."

On the category where The Bahamas was reported to have not progressed, Mr Turnquest said: "That is a misunderstanding on the bank's part. The cost of registering land has not gone up, but what the government did was changed it from the dual taxation regime of 7.5 percent in value added tax (VAT) along with the stamp tax at 2.5 percent, because what we found was that some companies were abusing the system and only paying the stamp tax 2.5 percent and not the VAT. So we sought to close that loophole to move back to just paying the stamp tax at 10 percent.

"Theoretically the company may be able to claim that their stamp tax went up to 10% but what we did was close the loophole that allowed them to get around paying the VAT by claiming it as an input.

"But then we had to move the entire regime back to VAT again to address some Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) matters so we can do away with perceived ring fencing issue. They thought that the way the original legislation was worded when we switched back to paying simply the stamp tax was that they felt that Bahamians were paying a different stamp tax than foreigners.

"The caveat is that they cannot claim it as an input now. These amendments were done in the last budget."

Mr Turnquest also cited the high document compliance fees and said: "Unfortunately for us we are subject to a slew of compliance costs that are not really relevant to us via cross-border initiatives we have signed on to and are obligated to, but we are obligated to monitor and keep in compliance. This is not something that is new or something only with regard to us but it may be more pronounced to us because we are a small jurisdiction. We are now looking at everyday issues that affect everyday Bahamian businesses."

Democratic National Alliance leader Arinthia Komolafe criticised the efforts to improve the national ranking, saying: "The fact that we have dropped another notch shows that we are not doing sufficient to improve our ranking in the international community's eyes."

She also lamented the inability to get services completed in a timely fashion from government agencies, saying "being able to get services from agencies is still a challenge" and that "reliable electricity is a major issue. This is no surprise that our rankings are falling."

Mrs Komolafe said digitisation of government services is "not where it needs to be".

She added: "With regard to getting drivers licences, Bahamians should be able to do that simply. There should be a barcode on your licence plate that should allow the person scanning it to look at all of your details, rather than having to drive around with your insurance documents in car and produce them on site.

"Once you register with the Road Traffic Department your information should be put into a system and when your licence is scanned like a barcode all of your registration details should appear."

Mrs Komolafe called for energy reform and said high energy costs are a considerable hindrance to doing business in The Bahamas, and that "the time that it takes to get a construction permit is still an issue and people are now openly complaining".

Mrs Komolafe did welcome progress in the Department of Customs with the newly launched electronic single window and said: "The Bahamas click to clear is a good sign of progress. But ultimately, we are just slow to make changes in the relevant areas. We have been making headway but we need to speed up the pace in these reforms."

Comments

birdiestrachan says...

It is to bad. MR: Turnquest can fool the peoples time voters. But he can not fool the
world bank. Lied and said VAT was bad then he and doc increased VAT 60 %.
Masterful liars indeed. See if the world bank believes you all lies.

Posted 28 October 2019, 3:22 p.m. Suggest removal

TheMadHatter says...

These World Bank people have got to be joking. There is nowhere in the world that it's easier to open a business than the Bahamas. Here we have the Bahamas Investments Board - which handles all the details for you. Here we have the sun, sand, and sea as well - and that helps. Have they ever come here and opened a business????? No. I'm sure they haven't. So they are talking about something they don't really know about. If they were to come here and open a business - I am sure their feeling would change.

From the time they land at the airport, it would be no more than 21 days until their license is in hand. That is the norm that I have heard. Land registration is also a piece of cake here. All properties have been indexed in the central computer and so ownership is not even a question.

As for Komolafe's license plates, I would suggest she be grateful she has a vehicle - while many are taking the bus. Thank God for life. Get over it. Sand, sun, and sea - don't forget.

Posted 28 October 2019, 3:58 p.m. Suggest removal

Sickened says...

Lol! I just spoke to someone at RBC Trinidad to get in contact for someone here in the Nassau branch.

It's easier to sneak into the white house.

Posted 28 October 2019, 4:05 p.m. Suggest removal

banker says...

Cayman Enterprise City approves in 48 hours, with work permit for employees and spouses, an office, free import duty exemption for a year and a bank account.

Posted 29 October 2019, 11:42 a.m. Suggest removal

yeahyasee says...

LOL

Posted 29 October 2019, 1:10 p.m. Suggest removal

proudloudandfnm says...

Seems every time Peter or Marlon say they've done something to improve ease of doing business it gets more difficult to do business....

Appears to me like Peter and Marlon have no idea what they are doing.....

Posted 28 October 2019, 4:08 p.m. Suggest removal

BONEFISH says...

A person with a real doctorate told me that last year.

Posted 28 October 2019, 8:04 p.m. Suggest removal

bcitizen says...

We should be at the bottom of the list not just dropped by one point. It's hell on Earth running a business here.

Posted 28 October 2019, 5:18 p.m. Suggest removal

BahamaPundit says...

Is it just me or has this FNM government failed at every stinking thing they've tried to achieve? I have never seen so much failure and lack of good news in a Bahamian administration before. The FNM needs to get on its knees and start praying.

Posted 28 October 2019, 7:37 p.m. Suggest removal

Biminibrad says...

Having attempted to operate a business there , employ 20 Bahamians with a annual wage of $30,000, and being told I am not a Bahamian, so therefore no business lic. will be granted, I gave up. Business was resort room rentals.

Posted 28 October 2019, 7:49 p.m. Suggest removal

totherisingsun says...

Only 4.5 years and counting to get a solar system passed. Pay to play or be shelved. Why not "tip" the World Bank and get us at the top of the list and show them how efficient we can be? Tips like marijuana should be legalized since it is so common, "everyone's doing it" and there's no harm in it...right!

Posted 29 October 2019, 5:33 a.m. Suggest removal

TalRussell says...

I was chatting with one my street corner sources who knows someone who knows someone deep up inside the World Bank who said, it's no assessment of a "misunderstanding" that the bank's rating officers does think of comrade finance minister KP as a man's who when he counts to Ten - he gets Seven the numbers wrong, yes no ....

Posted 29 October 2019, 11:35 a.m. Suggest removal

wellingtonpoitier says...

Finance Minister Turnquest needs help... The poor chap doesn't have a clue how to work with the World Bank. On a side note, his close friend and colleague, Dr Minnis, needs to put him on a diet (both a food and fiscal spending diet). He is looking quite large and they don't want the PLP getting the impression he is living too high on the hog!

Posted 29 October 2019, 12:33 p.m. Suggest removal

Economist says...

Need to change the General Orders for the Civil Service to improve efficiency. They are the biggest impediment to easy of doing business.

The current system is designed to frustrate the young educated hard working Civil Servant from doing his/her job and keep the status quo resulting in the country loosing out.

Posted 29 October 2019, 1:10 p.m. Suggest removal

Well_mudda_take_sic says...

The real problem is our elected officials are always looking to the OECD, IMF, World Bank, IDB, FATF, etc. for their report card grades and other feedback on how well they are governing our country rather than looking to the Bahamian people. It's gotten so bad now that PM Minnis, DPM Turnquest and AG Bethel actually believe they are more accountable and responsible to the international organizations trampling all over our interests, rights and sovereignty than they are to us, the Bahamian people.

Posted 29 October 2019, 2:16 p.m. Suggest removal

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