The Bahamas has to embrace innovative ideas and concepts in order to ensure its future success. This, according to Prime Minister, the Right Hon. Perry G. Christie, will be the driving force behind the country’s prosperity.
Mr. Christie made the statement while delivering the keynote address at the Chamber of Commerce National Conclave held at the Melia Nassau Resort April 15-16. The theme for the two-day seminar was, “Ideas and Innovation: Making The Bahamas a More Competitive Jurisdiction.” Mr. Christie said that the theme is “especially pertinent” at this juncture in the economic development of our country.
“Such a theme is more pertinent now than ever for the simple reason that the world in which we live and compete to earn our cherished relatively high standard of living is dynamic and ever-changing,” said the Prime Minister.“ In this new knowledge and skills-based environment, it is no longer acceptable nor feasible to rest on the status quo because trying to maintain things as they were, continuing to do things as they have always been done, implies falling ever further behind in the global competitiveness race.”
He said that the very concept of competitiveness itself is not static in nature but rather dynamic in that efforts should be carried out to push the boundaries of knowledge, abilities and capacities of the Bahamian people.
“It is the nations that are most successful in innovating and applying new ideas as to what should be done and how it should be done that will thrive in the globalized economy of the 21st Century.”
Such innovative ideas, he stressed, include the government’s decision to regulate the country’s local gaming industry, which threatened the stability of the regulated banking sector by creating a parallel financial sector.
Another initiative was the establishment of the Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival, which was developed through the commercialization of a longstanding cultural practice. The carnival, Mr. Christie believes, will create numerous entrepreneurial and job opportunities for the nation’s youth, where unemployment is highest.
In addition, he pointed to the formation of The Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI), that is based on the novel and innovative idea that commercial agriculture and fisheries can and must be allowed to flourish on a sustained basis in this country. BAMSI, he said, “will contribute to the scientific body of knowledge of commercial crop techniques that can flourish in The Bahamas and it will produce a new generation of skilled businesspersons in agriculture and fisheries, especially among our burgeoning youth population.”
Other initiatives, explained Mr. Christie, include the government’s innovation in budgetary planning for transparency and accountability. “We determined early on that, in the absence of decisive action, the burden of Government debt would have continued to rise to quickly to attain levels of 70 per cent of GDP and beyond,” he said.
“We simply could not go on mortgaging the future of our children to finance the running of today’s Government. To that end, the government established a Medium-Term Fiscal Consolidation Plan that comprises a multi-year strategy of which the overarching objective is to secure durable structural reform of the principal components of the public finances. The plan consists of four key parts: growing the economy; restraining expenditure; enhancing revenue administration; and securing new sources of revenue, including introduction of a new Value Added Tax as of January of this year.”
Other initiatives include: innovation in taxation, with the implementation of the Value Added Tax System, which commenced in January of this year; innovation in infrastructure development, with more emphasis being placed on Public-Private Partnerships, or PPPs, in the future development of the country.
“Given the great needs for such investments in our archipelagic nation and the fiscal constraints that we face, it is clear that this is an area in which innovative thinking and new ways of doing things are not only appropriate but necessary,” he said.
“For us, the main reason to contemplate such arrangements is that they offer the possibility of an improvement in value-for-money for Government. That is achieved through the transfer of risks to the private sector where it is best placed to assess and handle those risks. The improved value-for-money is also secured by the fact that, where it is private sector capital that is employed and at risk, the economically efficient planning and operational decisions are made. That, in turn, should lead to both better quality services and lower cost services.”
Finally, Mr. Christie pointed to innovation in Planning for Investments and Growth. He said that The Bahamas has entered a new age as it relates to planning. To that end, a National Development Plan is being developed in conjunction with The College of The Bahamas, with broad stakeholder input and technical assistance by local and foreign experts and also funding from the Inter- American Development Bank.
“This is a major, ambitious and innovative departure for Government planning in this country and I am confident that it will yield the very concrete and beneficial economic, and ultimately social, benefits to which we all aspire.”
He said that in November 2014 a team of professionals in the Office of the Prime Minister, assisted by local and international consultants and The College of The Bahamas began work on a process to develop a widely consulted National Development Plan which will guide the course of the Bahamian economy over the next decades.
“Over the next few months, as work on the National Development Plan unfolds, you will see evidence of a transformative approach to governance which places planning and results based management at the forefront of the activities of government so that we can achieve the best opportunities for the people that we serve.”
