Due to a 10 percent dip in the country’s revenue, the government today confirmed a hiring freeze and Prime Minister Perry Christie says he will observe “fiscal prudence” until it’s clear whether the United States will go to war.
“I will engage fiscal prudence until such time as I can see beyond what is happening in the Middle East, the prospect of a war in Iraq and the prospect of people not coming to the Bahamas anytime between now and January, February,” the Prime Minister said.
He was addressing the media at a press conference Wednesday announcing the new seven-member Housing Commission, chaired by Ken Dorsett.
Mr. Christie said: “We are behind in revenue by 10 or 11 percent, so far I have not given permission of the Minister of Finance to hire anyone.”
He believes that employment expectations of Progressive Liberal Party supporters were being “dashed on the rocks,” but the Prime Minister said he has an obligation to this country.
To facilitate the budget debate in July, the government had to borrow $125 million to pay bills, along with an additional $186 million to cover the budget deficit.
The government is faced with hard economic times as its revenue does not meet the expenditure of the country’s billion-dollar budget. On top of that the government lost $100 millionin tourism revenue as a result of September 11, he said.
Mr. Christie expressed his displeasure is those government corporations he termed cash “suckers” and “gougers.”
He estimated that Bahamasair is losing anywhere between $20 million and $30 million, the Hotel Corporation is burdened by Radisson’s $15 million loss and the water corporation continues to lose 50 percent of its water.
Mr. Christie said the country is in need of a public sector reform, one that is done in the right way.
“I have expressed publicly tremendous disappointment at the lack of responsiveness on the par of the public sector to the people of this country,” he said.
“I am in discussion with the Canadian government and representatives from the Canadian government to bring about as quickly as I possible can, public sector reform in its broadest and deepest sense.”
The Bahamian people are the ones who pay because of inefficiencies in government corporations, the Prime Minister said. When millions of dollars are being lost annually, there is an obligation to do better, he added.
With a window of two years left to the Bahamas to soak up the implication of the Free Trade Area of the Americas and the World Trade Organization, Mr. Christie admitted that the Bahamas might have to change its taxation system.
By Tosheena Blair, The Bahama Journal
