By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The deputy prime minister yesterday said the government will “certainly” seek to spread the Grand Bahama technology hub initiative to other islands in a bid to jumpstart the economy post-COVID-19.

K Peter Turnquest, speaking to reporters outside the Cabinet Office, said: “We are consulting with stakeholders in the community, private sector and Chamber of Commerce, to see how we can start to prepare for the potential reopening of the country.

“Unfortunately, until we get this virus under control there is really not much we can do other than to prepare, and educate, and work out the assistance packages that may be necessary to stimulate or jump-start activity once we have an all-clear to go back to work as normal, or as normal as normal can be in this circumstance.”

Highlighting the government’s intention to expand the “technology hub” initiative to other islands, Mr Turnquest said it will “certainly” start to look at New Providence and locations that have a sound “communications infrastructure” to help to spread one of its immediate post-election pledges.

He added, though, that the main priority right is helping Bahamians with financial assistance packages, and said: “We are working on assistance packages and what that might look like in terms of adding some fuel to the fires so people can go back to work on the domestic economy.

“We know for the next eight to 12 months there are going to be very little if any foreign tourists travelling to the islands. So we have to see how we can help to create and stimulate activity within the islands themselves, as well as within the individual islands, because we are not sure at this point when we will start inter-island travel.

‘We want to make sure we contain the virus as much as possible. This is a very interesting time for us, and it is going to take a lot of creativity,” Mr Turnquest continued. “We know that technology is going to play a big part in that, and so we are having discussions with the technology companies as well as encouraging people to provide us with their solutions as to how we might be able to do business, particularly from the government perspective.

“Right now we are sort of limping along, if you will, in particular with respect to the tax collection agencies, and we can’t carry on very much longer in that mode. So we have to figure out the new modalities that can come out of this to make the interface between the public and the government agencies that receive revenue more efficient and be able to work remotely.”

Mr Turnquest also said: “There is a lot of ground work that needs to be done in order to set up this new ecosystem, and that is what we are focusing on, as well as observing the international community and what they are doing. We are having daily conversations with all of the multilateral agencies as to the assistance that they can provide, the technical assistance with respect to policy options that we may come up with or that they have based upon their experience what they can share from us.

“We are trying to learn from the region what it is they are doing to see how we can jumpstart the economy. Again, this is not going to be easy and it is not going to be quick, but hopefully working together with the private sector and the public sector, we can come up with a reasonable solution that will allow us to go back to work, albeit in a different way, but start to create economic activity.

“This whole thing again emphasises to us the need to diversify away from tourism, particularly the big box tourism, and it confirms for us that we are on the right path with respect to the investments in technology we have been doing in the last three years, also in terms of the investment in agriculture and fisheries and in mining and manufacturing, and trying to ensure that those things remain stable and that we invest more and explore more in things we can do locally,” said Mr Turnquest.