While this practice is nothing new, Mr. Nutt, who was a guest on the Love 97 Radio Programme “Issues of the Day” said that there are indeed new ways to address the matter.
He believes that the government should draft legislation to penalize persons who write such cheques.
“Government agencies have basically covered themselves in not accepting business or personal cheques, but some businesses are not,” Mr. Nutt said. “However, once the government begins getting bad cheques themselves, I think we might see movement in the area of providing some form of protection that would effectively deal with this problem.”
Many establishments that recently participated in a survey conducted by the Coalition of Private Sector Organizations reported that they were actually losing millions of dollars, partially due to bad cheques, but also because of employee theft, shoplifting, the cost of hiring security and electronic surveillance.
Many businesses have already taken the matter into their own hands, opting not to accept personal cheques to avoid the problem altogether, despite the inconveniences caused to some customers.
Others have adopted publishing the names of persons who have written bad cheques in local newspapers.
But it is an approach, Mr. Nutt pointed out, that has only worked in favour of some employers.
He indicated, however, that a more proactive stance in tackling the issue would be pressing criminal charges.
“I think that if workers are caught stealing by reason of employment that they should be dismissed with an honest reference – if one is suggested, and this is a very fundamental thing for businesses to do” he said. “However, the police should also be called. People have to start paying for the crimes they commit, in order to realize that crime simply doesn’t pay.”
As businesspersons tackle such issues, many of them have said that they continue to hold back on capital spending. More of them, however, are also reporting optimism looking ahead.
But according to Mr. Nutt, if not careful, the country could slowly sink into a state of very serious financial and economic problems due to a myriad of structural challenges.
Mr. Nutt pointed out that while it is safe to presume that things will be fine for the next 15 to 20 years, beyond this, The Bahamas will be stuck in a deep hole facing many problems.
Such problems, he said, would require a concerted effort and major sacrifice from all Bahamians to turn the economy around.
“I think we need to look at what we can do now to start reversing some trends, lower the cost of doing business and assist in bringing the level of theft and corruption down,” he said.
Executive Director of the Nassau Tourism Development Board, Frank Comito, who also appeared on the show, added that the issue of employees stealing on the job has become a deep- rooted social problem.
“There is a sense that people owe me this, so I’ll take it,” he said, “not seeing the entire issue as a matter of stealing and this is unfortunate.”
By Macushla Pinder, The Bahama Journal
