The news a week ago said business would be halted, this article said business would be halted. @BigRocks said his business was halted... due to govt employee error. I am saying this herky jerky approach is disruptive to commerce. Put in place measures so it does not happen or happens in reduced cases. Just because they operated this way for years doesnt mean it's the best way. Segregate the money. If after doing all of that a company is still unable to remit payments, sure put locks on the door, they either should not be in business or should be adjusting their business model. I'm talking about the big players, small business are trickier

Not paying electricity to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars would not be tolerated as well.

I'm not talking about what "should" have happened. Everybody agrees on what "should" have happened. Its egregious that someone would collect VAT fees from a customer and then use those fees that dont belong to them for personal or business expenses.

We are here.

Our options are to address the current reality with a solution that is disruptive and damaging or to try to have as little disruption as possible. The only difference between what you suggest and what I suggest is a notice to the business that we see what you doing, its illegal, stop it now, we give you 6 months to fix it. That's all.

A segregated account requirement so we dont have to have this same conversation in the next 6 months

An initiative the govt could undertake is having any business remitting more than 500,000 in VAT keep a segregated VAT account. **This would be a proactive approach to avoiding the buildup in the first place**. A part of their reporting would show the transfer of 10% of any revenue deposited to the account. I dont know all the inner workings of such a scheme and I understand that there's also the issue of VAT returns to consider for cash flow, so it might be the transfer of maybe 8%. the purpose is to show a segregation of the funds and that those funds are not being used for operational costs. I'm going on the assumption that opening a segregated account doesnt result in any undue burden on the business.

2 weeks ago, the PM made a public statement about a company that owed the govt 6.4 million in immigration fees collected on the govts behalf in addition to money related to the food program. Did the govt prevent the company from doing business? No the PM reported we've collected so much in cash, they returned a truck, a boat and we expect a few hundred thousand tomorrow and I assume that arrangement would go on until whatever fees were outstanding were collected. For that single business I would have said the govt could have put locks on the door, but they didnt.

**Was it 2 years ago that a govt report came out that revealed that hotels were behind on their electricity bills to the tune of hundreds of thousands,** I didnt get the impression that that was a normal *we resolve payables in 30 days* situation. **There was another report of hundreds of companies that were years behind on NIB payments. Was a decision made to cutoff the electricity to the hotels until they paid up? Were the businesses shutdown until they cleared up the outstanding NIB payments**? also a compliance issue. But the govt didnt take that action because they understood to do so would do more harm vs any good that would come from some businesses resolving all of their outstanding bills immediately.

I am aware of how VAT works, **I am aware that no business should be dipping into VAT for operational expenses, I never said *just let them continues as is, it's only money*. I said give them 6 months to resolve. That 6 months looks like anything that's deemed reasonable,** for example, current payments have to be up to date as well as the receipt of some payment toward the outstanding. If a business displays that they can't remit current payments then you take drastic action.

**What you're missing is that these couriers are a critical part of the economy in the absence of a functioning post office**. some persons use these couriers to receive medicine to live. I stood waiting in line at a courier a little over a year ago as a lady tried to resolve the location of her medicine. **I can imagine many other mission critical transactions that are now stuck as people shifted to using couriers instead of the unreliable post office.**

All I'm saying is, this is yet another baffling decision in a string of other such decisions when the same results could have been achieved by more temperate means.

Said this would cause chaos when it was announced. Another ill thought out economy impacting change. What they could have done was given the companies 6 months to come into compliance. I cant imagine that there are hundreds if not thousands of bahamians who now have critical supplies, some life altering e.g., medical supplies, caught up in another finance ... whatever you call these string of head strachers

Whos in charge? As the wheels kept stuck deeper in the mess, will wait for the PM to announce that he knew nothing about it

I found it strange that a dealer received a rental bill with an 11,000 dollar increase. Seems like mafia tactics. But what do I know maybe its natural for rents to increase by 25% every year

"*...people who work in this industry*"

which industry is that? buying tshirts and towels?

This all well and good but creating a false reality wont solve the problem. The reality is some family members will cover for their relatives no matter what they do because they love them. This is reality. Some family members will allow relatives to do want they want because they fear them. This is reality.

Did they simply flash their lights or was it a chase? Because this is not the first second or 3rd time that officers chasing a car were shot at. Why do we constantly play this we're so shocked and surprise game? The world where the criminal just gives up because lights are flashed at them doesnt exist. The police need a smarter way

Who is "y'all"?

Anyway, I'm on the fence on the push for local govt. I dont believe anything is a cure all and Im wary that that's how the local govt conversation is being framed, as if its automatically organized and scandal and abuse proof.

In reality, they could fix our administration issues without local govt, just hire and empower a competent administrative "team".

I'm also skeptical of some of the persons putting themseves forward as "obvious" local govt officials. Really really wary of them. More of the same, elected on celebrity and talk show appearance vs competence or character

It was a poor response. Coming from Mr Munroe Im going to assume he said something before he gave it much thought. Can happen. This fire for that small community was actually a "*disaster*", the response to disaster cannot be *who could have expected me to know if the response equipment was working?* The foundation of disaster response is to be constantly in a state of readiness