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Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
 Dear Editor ,
The Elephant In The Room is strangling us all, the lack of Bahamian ownership represents a profound threat to our nation's fabric. There's no secret, the Bahamian economy has demonstrated that It can work but contrary to that it only works for a privileged few, and for the rest of us it has led to our economic disintegration.
The Bahamian people must be the formula for unleashing the entrepreneurialism that is needed for development in our country. We are a people who have the commitment, determination, vision, and dexterity to manage the economic complexity of our country. Economic mobility and ownership for our people is at the center of our national development, Bahamian psyche, and culture.
We have granted concessions to ever single Foreign Direct Investor so they can appease us with dismal employment growth. What we offer investors must translate to more than employment, we as a country value more than investors benefiting on the labor and backs of Bahamians. The path to Bahamians owning their economy over the last two decades has been slow, it is imperative that our economic destiny give them their rightful inheritance. The success of our country in this era necessitates economic inclusion and good governance. This revolution is about economic underpinnings and creating a knowledge driven economy, that utilize the talents of our people to accelerate industrial development.
The economic disenfranchisement of any Bahamian is intolerable. When there is continued marginalization and the creation of barriers to prevent mobility of citizens in our country, it becomes an antidote to poverty, an incubator for crime, a garment for inequality, and a disincentive for individuals who work to improve their economic position. Our focus should be: how to empower our citizens to perform essential economic functions while protecting their interest in a country saturated with foreign investment so they can fairly compete. The Bahamas is at its worst when we only respond to the cries and concerns of the privileged and overlook and fail to correct the challenges of the majority. An economic renaissance presents tremendous opportunities for any government who understand their people well enough to leverage their talents to solve a country's deep-seated problem.
Unfortunately the economic change we seek will come from the bottom of the economic ladder in our country, where you shall find talented, skillful, and knowledge-driven Bahamians who have been excluded from the process of reshaping our political, social, and economic systems. Our overdependence of tourism has left us in a peculiar position of compromise against the best interest of our people.
The new economic paradigm is simple, lets focus on the fair revaluation and distribution of our country's resources, abolish a way of life that enriches the powerful and affluent while disenfranchising the working class or the poor, dismantle any economic environment where the distribution of wealth and prosperity in our nation has become more unequal, and the creation of a society with broader economic inclusion with the imperative of strengthening Bahamian ownership. Talented qualified Bahamians , in the Bahamas is an endangered species facing extinction going country to country in search for economic appreciation and a better way of life because we failed to provide an attractive economic environment for talented Bahamians to return home to. Leaders should never be intimidated or feel threatened by the talents of their own people and stagnate them for the benefit of security.
The malaise cause by the inequality of opportunities that persist in The Bahamas has led to social disconnectedness and a growing gap between the rich and the poor with no tangible intervention, that will result in an economic polarization among the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’.It is an economic disaster to enrich investors and those at the top at the expense of the rest. We have to decide whether we will be a Bahamas where economic opportunities and ownership are concentrated or will be a Bahamas where economic opportunities and ownership are shared. Foreign Direct Investors aren't here because they have an intrinsic love for the Bahamian people. They are here because they are making a profit that is adding to their bottom line. The government must safeguard the interest of their people by assuring that investors do their cooperate responsibility in building a better Bahamas before transferring their profits overseas. Now is the time to strengthen support for domestic investment for our people. Now is the time to address the elephant in the room.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed here are solely those of the author in his/her
private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of
TheBahamasWeekly.com
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