Just another Government document to be sold out the back door, or produced fraudulently, counterfeited.
Why don't you just implant a chip in everyone's forehead!
Woah, shades of Revelations? The Christian Council aught to be all over this!
Government cannot get done right the smallest or simplest of tasks,
yet we are supposed to line up like good little drones and get "tagged"?
Hey, maybe they can charge $25/year for renewals, so we can be reminded of their power to issue your right to live.
(or not)

Insanity given the typical Bahamian Male attitude towards the fairer sex!
Emancipation was apparently for men only,
For Gods sake, pose the question in the negative for equality!
IE Yes, we should leave things alone, NO= make it right!
Bahamians do nothing but vote against, no matter the topic or sensibility!
I agree, referendum only if required by the Constitution, otherwise just do it!

The degree to which a government will undermine the rule of law,
is limited only by the will of the people who elected them in the first place.
Undoing the structures of a decent law abiding society only empowers those who would rule,
and undermines personal freedoms that have taken centuries to develop, across many cultures and societies.
What is being destroyed is beyond their ability to create.

I would not put too much faith or stock in the P.M's words,
they are confused and obfuscating at best.
For the public, this may have seemed a rushed, spur of the moment money grab,
in truth, this has been years in the making, through both FNM and PLP regimes.
The alternate taxation methods suggested hold some merit on their own,
but fail to provide what the IMF and Government really want:
Internal, economic data to be used to support the Implementation of Income tax.
The internal economy and asset base is a foggy haze, which the IMF (and oecd, idb, wto, ) want lifted.

Currency Free? With the Advent of VAT, we will be more cash based than ever.The Majority use the ATM for a paycheck withdrawal machine every week as it is.

"three polices, paychecks creation, economy stimulation and returning our Bahamaland to peace.."
Tal, those are the three things the Government has gotten involved in, which has us in the disaster we are in now!
Government has no capability to Fix any one of them, and their erratic policies and flip flopping prevents Private sector confidence, which alone can stimulate the economy.
Perry and Co announce restricting bail conditions, and Barnett promptly counters with a no interference in the Judiciary statement!
And what is the "Glue" for? to further clog up their brains?

“We have a group of men that have learned to fend for themselves because they don’t trust anyone else. They have learned to respond brutally."

They have not learned to fend for themselves, they have discovered how to pray on others, how to steal, rob and murder.
Emulating our leadership at their own level.
The brutality escalates in proportion to the number of people involved in this growing criminal underworld.

"“While there was resistance to the proposed National Service in the 1980s when it was set up as a military programme, the resistance continued even after it was reformulated to be a programme of real service. Perhaps the sticking point was that it was to be mandatory, and many of the more privileged members of the society did not think that their children needed to be included in the programme."

So we will commit our children to the same incompetencies that have allowed crime to run rampant?
Government does nothing well, or efficiently, or free of graft, or impartially.
Placing children in the hands of Government is exactly how N.K. evolved, how Hitler captivated the German people to wage war on the world. how despotic leadership the world over creates jack booted thugs.
our thugs are already half prepped, to "organize" them under the arm of Government is asking for trouble compounded.

Again, the intellectual glitterati completely ignores the root causes of our woes,
A lack of Personal, societal ethics and morals, combined with a myopic and shortsighted view!
We assumed self determination
but developed no self control!
Most, if not all those who became our political core (rotten to the core)
got busy as hell pillaging the treasury!
Urban what? Ver 1, 1.1, 1.2, we can do this for decades and it will not fix anything.
Our country offers nothing to our youth, except exclusion,
but they are following the examples set and seen daily.
Build a prison for 30K (10K women, 20k men)
A moratorium on bail, 24 hr courts properly equipped and staffed.
Police Helicopters overhead 24/7, thermal imaging, no escape.
If we are not to be trusted to do our own policing,
get rent a cop!
What has ruined our country in the main is the social intervention of the Government over the last 40 years.

Both political parties fail to live up to their promises,
each being largely incompetent and too busy maneuvering things for their own personal benefit.
Get real man, neither has any answers, nor any plan beyond the 5 year cycle.
That Bahamians still bother to vote or get excited around election time is beyond comprehension!
Both bear responsibility for all the waste of treasury funds, sweetheart deals resulting in no project getting finished or being completed within budget.
This back and forth criticism is expected from two thugs in the dock arraigned for a crime but pointing fingers at each other before the Judge!

The exodus of the best and brightest has been going on for decades, facilitated by institutions of higher learning elsewhere.
Once you see the opportunities everywhere else, not so politically manipulated, staying away is an easy choice.
On a point of order, VAT is regressive, not progressive.
A progressive tax is oxymoronic.
At this point, Government taxation is like being forced to pay the gangsters for protection,
without receiving any protection!