Arawak Port Development (APD) Limited's CEO is questioning The Bahamas' latest ranking in the World Bank's 2014 Ease of Doing Business report, claiming that it fails to provide a true assessment of the country's capabilities and competitiveness.
Michael Maura Jr., head of the company which was formed in 2009 to develop, operate and maintain Nassau's main port, noted that the report could negatively impact the country's reputation as it inaccurately paints the country's port facility as "inefficient".
Yesterday, he expressed particular concern with the section of the report that focused on trading across borders, which noted that The Bahamas has dropped five spots from 67 to 72 in the rankings.
Ninety-five percent of the shipping containers handled at the Nassau Container Port are imports.
According to the widely-read World Bank report, released in October, once a container arrives in Nassau, it takes an average of 13 days for the goods to get to the importer.
Maura emphatically denied this to be true, saying "that just does not happen".
"I could not understand how they came up with their figures and where they got their information from," he said during a press conference at APD's offices at Arawak Cay.
"For the person that knows what they're doing, they can honestly get the cargo off the dock and through Customs in 36 hours. And for the person that is semi-focused on it, it shouldn't take more than three days."
The APD chief revealed that significant delays occur either when bills of lading are not aligned with invoices or if someone does not have the cash flow to pay the import duty.
"If you have a situation where a bill of lading says 'building materials' and the invoice says 'F-150', that does not align. That would cause a delay because Customs would want to do an inspection," according to Maura.
"But when someone is prepared to receive that cargo, they've paid their duties and it's a clean entry in that their bill of lading is said to contain 'building materials' and their invoice says 'doors, nails, joint compound', they align and that's a clean entry."
The report specifically compares The Bahamas with Barbados, comparing the cost of importing a 20-foot FCL (full container load), dry, non-hazardous container at the Nassau Container Port and Barbados Port Inc.
While The Bahamas ranked 72 out of 189 countries in the trading across borders section of the World Bank report, Barbados ranked 30. The report states a cost to import in US dollars, in The Bahamas, of $1,770 in comparison to Barbados that charges $1,615.
Going forward, Maura is encouraging the government to include APD in its research and information that is presented to the World Bank to ensure that the bank's information is "relevant and factual".
"We are far better than what we are being portrayed to be," he added.
"A truer assessment of The Bahamas' trading across borders capability will positively influence consumer and investor confidence in the market."
Overall, The Bahamas ranks 84th in the Ease of Doing Business report.

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