By FAY SIMMONS

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

A Cabinet minister yesterday called for greater regional unity, and for Caribbean states to “lean” more on each other rather than relying solely on the US all the time.

JoBeth Coleby-Davis, minister of energy and transport, said stronger Caribbean collaboration through CARICOM is key to strengthening economies without imposing an extra tax burden on their citizens. s.

Speaking at the Caribbean Infrastructure Forum (CARIF) in Miami, she emphasised the need for deeper regional integration, arguing that Caribbean nations should be working together, leveraging each other’s strengths, and learning from shared experiences to build economic resilience.

“The Bahamas has to continue to lean on and strengthen our relationship with the US because of how we are situated,” said Mrs Coleby-Davis. “And the Caribbean has some advantage through CARICOM to look within ourselves and see what our strengths are, what our resources are.

“So where we may have some weaknesses in The Bahamas, we may be able to lean on Nevis or Barbados or Jamaica or Trinidad to have that strength, and to utilise CARICOM to be able to push forward. How we connect our Caribbean islands helps us to continue to grow our economy.

Mrs Coleby-Davis added that leaders across the Caribbean must now focus on developing their economies in more effective, sustainable ways but not at the expense of the population.

“Now, it’s about continuing to grow your economy in a more effective way, and avoid having to put so much of a heavy tax burden on your people. As leaders, as government, you have to find ways to be able to produce, but also limit, the amount of cost you place back on the country,” she said.

Mrs Coleby-Davis also outlined the Government’s strategy for modernising and diversifying The Bahamas’ energy sector, stressing that the shift toward renewables is essential but cannot be fully funded by the public sector due to existing debt levels.

She said the Government is actively seeking strategic partnerships with private investors to help fund the transition, which includes the use of solar energy, battery storage, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a transitional fuel.

“Bringing in renewables also required us to create a new level of thinking in the energy sector, where we introduce independent power producers (IPPs) through PPAs (ppwer purchase agreements). Bringing in smaller, independent power producers to utilise renewables, through solar panels, through battery storage, and also finding a transitional fuel, which we’re utilising LNG as our transitional fuel, helps us to begin to have that conversation of how we diversify our energy sector and how we find the funding,” said Mrs Coleby-Davis

“Because the Government is indebted - we don’t have it - but we need to respond to the present challenges and the cost, and to reduce it, but also bring in renewables. So we look to do that by strategic partnerships, by putting in structures in our financial models with these independent strategic partners that allows such a term that stretches across some 20 to 25 years; that allows us to be able to afford to do these upgrades, to modernise in a more efficient and effective way, but also do it with the best technology that presently exists.”