Cant get a letter delivered on time. Perfected over 400 years ago but, we going to get digital currency and IDs right. Jokes and more jokes. More hair brain ideas building bridges to nowhere. VAT 20% here we come.

Sounds like it will be an amazing deal for everyone except the general public.

More government spending/programs after VAT increase. VAT 20% here we come. Government cannot help themselves.

Fast food if it can be considered food is poison. Free choice yes but, people also depend on the government to defend them from snake oil salesmen. If we are going to move towards a national free health care system whether you agree with it or not people must pay for their poor choices.

WTO will not end well for the majority of Bahamians. Our economy will be opened up to large corporations. Even our largest companies are babies. So Bahamians will be forced to compete on the world stage while being restricted to our sandbox by the government. Who restrict our ability to get access to outside capital, invest in foreign companies and stock exchanges, and own assets outside of the Bahamas. So if we want to join the big global WTO stuff do not restrict Bahamians to only the Bahamas economy while letting everyone else in.

So if l rent an apartment and l am responsible for my own electricity, am l now responsible to pay my landlords property tax or have my electricity cut off?

While the backlog of real property tax needs to be collected. I hear far more about government increasing revenue then l hear about growing the economy, cutting waste, expenditure, and our bloated civil service hog. They only thing they have mentioned is the self contribution to retiremet for new hires. So we'll see this cost saving in what 40 years?

WTO and VAT are causing allot of uncertainty for Bahamian business and uncertainty in the private sector is a bigger job/economy killer than the taxes or policies themselves.

"cannot - in many instances - treat local businesses and investors more favourably than foreign-owned ones." Then why have citizenship and a country if my government cannot offer me advantage in my own country? Talk about discrimination is when a toaster can cross a border easier than a person can with less paperwork. Our government is rushing headlong into this thing and yes we have the longest accession process in history but, no one in government has really been working on this all that time. Now they want to take us from the guppie pond and throw us into the shark tank when it is the government who is the biggest hindrance to Bahamian business. They have failed miserably over the years to even supply proper basic infrastructure like roads, reliable water, electricity, and phones/internet. Proper efficient basic government services and now they want to rush head long into throwing the Bahamian economy into the shark tank when they still have not corrected their deficiencies and expect us to survive. These people got jokes.
The WTO is designed for the big boys and big corporations to skirt the authority of sovereign governments. The drum beat about this being a rules based trading system is a farce. One has to only look at the US, China, and EU right now who are doing what they want. The big boys make and break the rules as they like.

This does not apply to the Bahamas. I am above average computer literate person. I can do networking, basic programing, web page building, build computers from scratch etc. I also have been waiting 8 years for RBC to setup my online banking (I finally close my account). I have also been waiting for 6 years to be able to log into my online BTC account to pay my bill. I gave up trying to get either of them to work. As for where I work I have been waiting 3 years for a credit card machine from FCIB. It also took 2 months to have online banking setup. I also have been using a sim card for internet for over a year since BTC cannot fix my DSL line. So this mantra about everyone should be online and digital in this country is a joke.