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Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
 Recent developments emerged as it relates to the National Flag Carrier, Bahamasair, and the borrowing of over $100 million dollars over the course of this administration that reports have it is simply unaccounted for in this budget or previous budgets. While the information was brought to light by former Minister for Works, Neko Grant, we are all too concerned as to how this happened and how come persons within the House of Assembly have just now picked up on such a transaction.
What we in the DNA understand with regard to expenditures and appropriation for expenditures is that Appropriations Bills must come to the House of Assembly for approval and must be a part of the budget process, accounted for and documented. If this is not happening in the House of Assembly with regard to all public finances, then we have larger problems than just this obscene electioneering budget- we have a government not paying due care and attention to the Bahamian purse and how they put Bahamian taxpayers into blind obligations and deeper debt.
Without question our public corporations need support from the government. More importantly, due to this recent matter with Bahamasair, and most certainly as we harken to the issue with the former Bahamas Electricity Corporation and the financing model that put them deeper into a debt spiral under the first Christie led government, we have come to understand that the status quo in the modern era just won’t cut it.
Worst of it all, we are not sure if the vetting of the firms that outfitted Bahamasair with their new fleet- which it was claimed that the monies were borrowed for- were up to standard, brought to the House of Assembly and tabled in an open, fair and transparent manner. We simply are not sure and I think it is safe to say that this government has lost the trust and faith of the Bahamian people with regard to the way they do business. Particularly in light of the BEC scandal that has caused a former Senator to be found guilty of bribery, and we are not casting aspersions on the process with regard to Bahamasair’s new fleet and the $100 million, but we are simply at a stage in a new Bahamian era where we desperately need more openness on how our money is spent, leveraged and debts being repaid.
All of this, along with a bankrupt Bahamasair that now has a financial deficit of over $550 million; a Bahamas Telecommunications Corporation that was semi-privatized, with the government owning a significant stake; a BEC that is under new, private management under a structure to privatize that in the near future; a Bank of The Bahamas that was at near failure and received bailout support from the government; and along with the government owning stakes in several major entities from Cable Bahamas to the Grand Bahama Port Authority, just to name a few, it is clear that a new way to manage these interests on behalf of the Bahamian people is desperately needed, and particularly away from the overt manipulation of the Cabinet and political cronies that decide that these entities are theirs and theirs alone, abusing their privilege along the way.
In this vein, a DNA government will cause there to be a strict adherence to the public audits of these government corporations with a view in mind to strengthening the Financial Administration and Audit Act and simultaneously the provisions for the Auditor General.
Secondly, the DNA government will seek to work with private sector partners that share interest in corporations that provide public goods, in which the government has a significant stake in, with a view in mind to having all of these companies listed with the local Stock Exchange, which we feel would bolster public confidence in their management transparency and accountability as well as widen the investor pool at the same time.
Thirdly, a DNA government will commission an independent public management corporation with the specific mandate of managing all of the government’s private sector portfolio and interests along with providing oversight to companies, whether solely owned government corporations; quasi government corporations; entities in the private sector that the government has invested itself in; and any future entity within the private sector that the government may have a stake in.
Not only do we feel at this time that part of the problem with the lack of due diligence with our public corporations and entities where the government has significant interest, but we also feel that for the future when we speak of the potential of oil revenues, other mining minerals and when we look back at what the Hotel Corporation used to be- albeit with a slightly different scope and mandate- we find it necessary that a public management corporation that works as a trust and hybrid sovereign wealth fund feasible, but necessary to assist with regard to managing the Bahamian people’s interest.
This public sector management corporation will be private sector driven, established like a real company with powers vested in it to operate like a private company without the interference of the government and cabinet. Its sole purpose will be to seek alpha in every investment the government has in the private sector, or in public corporations that operate on the basis of private entities.
In addition, a public management corporation would certainly ease the process of liberalization of the sectors, and putting more of the wealth into the hands of Bahamians and not vested in a government bureaucracy that is broken and inefficient, as we have plainly seen over the last several years as matters get worse.
The DNA feels that we can start the process of modernizing the management of our country’s assets and interests, while handing more wealth back to Bahamians under a process led by a corporation that has a mandate to do what is right by the private sector.
Youri Kemp
DNA Candidate for Garden Hills
DNA Spokesperson for the Economy and Finance
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