Strong support for web shops

Mon, Jan 13th 2014, 11:51 AM

Almost one year after the January 28 gambling referendum, a new scientific poll shows strong support for the legalization of web shops in The Bahamas.
The survey, conducted by Public Domain, a local market research and public opinion polling company, comes as the government and the church continue to lock horns over the prickly issue of regulating the numbers industry.
Respondents were asked whether they support the legalization of web shops.
Thirty-seven percent said they "strongly support" and 18 percent said they "somewhat support".
Thirty-two percent said they "strongly oppose" and another eight percent said they "somewhat oppose".
Five percent of respondents did not know or did not answer.
Asked to expand on the results of the survey, M'wale Rahming, president of Public Domain, said the "real story" is in the silent majority.
"You're going to have people who feel strong about an issue, and no matter what you do they're not going to change," he told The Nassau Guardian.
"The story then becomes what about the people who don't have any skin in the game...As you can see, we have twice as many people who support rather than oppose in that category."
Rahming was referring to respondents who did not have a strong feeling either way.
These non-polarized people include the 18 percent who said they "somewhat support" and the eight percent who said they "somewhat oppose".
"So the category of the silent majority is really saying 'yes, we want this'," Rahming said.
Public Domain conducted a similar survey in November 2012, a few weeks before the referendum. Respondents were asked whether they support the legalization of web shops and whether they would vote yes or no.
The results showed that 53.4 percent said they would vote no, and 43.3 percent said they would vote yes. Another 3.3 percent said they did not know or did not answer.
Rahming said the previous survey did not allow the silent majority a place to speak.
The survey was commissioned by Philip Galanis, the former parliamentarian who served as the co-ordinator for the Vote Yes campaign, which was unsuccessful in convincing a majority of the electorate to vote in favor of regulating and taxing web shops.
Asked to comment on the results, Galanis said, "We are very pleased to observe that today the majority of Bahamians still support the legalization of web shops, slightly higher than they did just a year ago.
"The fact is that although the majority of Bahamians voted against such legalization in last year's referendum is neither persuasive nor conclusive. We maintain that the referendum results do not represent the national sentiment on this issue, particularly in light of the low voter turnout."
Galanis noted that the total number of votes cast against the legalization of web shops was 51,146 or 62 percent of the votes cast versus 31,657 or 38 percent of the votes cast in favor of legalization. The voter referendum turnout of 48 percent of the 2012 registered voters was extremely low compared to the 156,000 votes cast in the 2012 general election, a 91 percent turnout, Galanis noted.
"Hence, it would be erroneous to conclude that a majority of Bahamians are opposed to legalizing web shops," he said.
In the year since the gambling referendum, web shops have continued to operate in the open as a court challenge remains outstanding.
Last week, the Bahamas Christian Council and the Save Our Bahamas Committee questioned if the government was seeking to "overturn" the results of last year's gambling referendum by allowing the status quo on web shops to remain unchanged.
The groups have stressed that the results of the referendum must stand.
REVENUE
In its recent survey, Public Domain also asked respondents, 'Do you agree or disagree that the government needs to increase revenue?'
Sixty-six percent of respondents strongly agreed; 20 percent somewhat agreed; four percent somewhat disagreed; seven percent strongly disagreed and three percent said they did not know or did not answer.
"Bahamians have overwhelmingly indicated that the government needs to increase revenue, notwithstanding the perceived sentiment that they are uncertain that value-added tax (VAT) is the best means for doing so," Galanis said.
"The $20 million to $30 million annual tax windfall that would have resulted from a 'yes' vote would have significantly strengthened the public coffers. The 'no' vote has deprived the country of that significant revenue injection.
"Armed with the recent polling data, we hope that the government will do the right thing by legalizing and regulating the web shops so that this significant economic activity can be brought into the real economy with the consequential benefits that will inevitably inure to the country by so doing.
"The time is long overdue for the government to demonstrate bold, decisive leadership in this regard."
Rahming also commented on the strong acknowledgement on the revenue question.
"The government has been saying that it needs to raise revenue and we wanted to find out if the public agreed with them on this matter. And what's interesting here is I've never really seen support that comes out at nearly 90 percent," he said.
Public Domain polled 575 people in its survey.
Rahming said this sample size is considered "respectable".
"If you look at America, America does a survey of 1,500 people to represent 300 million. So we're actually being more specific here than we would in the United States," he said.
"But 575 in our population is a very respectable sample size. We generally suggest a minimum of 400 with a maximum of 1,000 and generally around 600 is what we tend to aim for. So a very respectable sample size. It is also randomly selected."
The survey was conducted between January 2 and January 6.

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