Well-known Bahamian businessman Al Collie claimed that successive governments in The Bahamas have provided greater incentives and better advantages for foreign investors over Bahamian investors.
Mr. Collie, who was one of the guests on Love 97’s “Jones and Company”, which aired on Sunday, said the present and past governments have failed to empower Bahamians while laying out the red carpet for foreigners.
“I think that the foreigners need incentives. I have nothing against a foreign investor – What I am saying, however, is that our culture, our leaders’ [attitude] seems to favour the foreign investors more than us,” he said.
“We Bahamians are qualified. We have doctors; we have excellent lawyers; we have accountants; we have dentists; we have all of the professional people. Why do we think that we don’t have the business mind in the Bahamas? And that is the myth that I am trying to quash-The fact is that myth goes so high until it’s stifling us Bahamians.”
Mr. Collie said this situation is just not fair.
He questioned why it is that Cable Bahamas under the Free National Movement Administration was “given to the foreigners.”
Mr. Collie charged that Bahamian businessmen did not win the deal simply because they were Bahamians.
He said nothing has changed under the Progressive Liberal Party government as it relates to the treatment of Bahamian investors.
“I feel that this government and the former government are simply out of touch. The Bahamian people are at a higher level than they are,” Mr. Collie added.
“We have seen the Paradise Island development. We will now see the Baha Mar or the Cable Beach development. All of those are foreign. This government, they [still] haven’t got it. Once again they’re doing a lot with the land that they wouldn’t do for us Bahamians.”
Mr. Collie said there is a culture that has fostered such thinking and it is not unique to any particular party.
“We have a culture in our black community to do one thing. In the white [community], they have a culture to do another thing,” he said.
Mr. Collie accused the government of “empowering the foreign whites”, not Bahamians.
He said the prime minister should be empowering his base, but is not now doing that.
Mr. Collie said there are many Bahamians with ability and good ideas who are just not getting the support from the government that they need to get into business and survive.
“Don’t place a brick wall in front of those people because a lot of that is happening,” he said. “You’d be surprised to know the number of young [people] with excellent ideas, but because they don’t have a parent with money or they can’t get money from [somewhere else], those ideas die.”
He, however, conceded that the government’s $2 million Venture Capital Fund is a step in the right direction.
But he said the concerns of Bahamian businessmen are many.
Pointing to a personal situation, Mr. Collie said that he waited more than a year and a half for the present government to respond to his proposal for a $5 million project at Crooked Island and ended up withdrawing that proposal because he never got a response.
“They turned me around for a year and a half-As a businessman, one year is too much; six months is too long,” he said.
“To the credit of our former prime minister, Mr. Hubert Ingraham, I remember when I applied for the Pearl Island development, in a matter of days I got approval-In fact, I was able to start my development within three months.”
Also on the programme was Dr. Daniel Johnson, a consultant surgeon at the Princess Margaret Hospital, who is also a local businessman. Dr. Johnson said many Bahamians who are in the majority are being frustrated because “the system is working against them.”
“What drives all economies, big and small, are small businesses,” Dr. Johnson reminded.
He said that he has a million-dollar investment in Marsh Harbour, Abaco that would transform the way healthcare is delivered and is involved in other similar projects, but continues to face frustrations in getting approval and government support.
“No reply even; no reply,” Dr. Johnson said. “We ask for licenses, you know you get some kind of wishy-washy return-[It’s] garbage. We are the ones on the frontline getting stuff done. We employee hundreds of people and we’re saying ‘let’s move the agenda’.”
Source: The Bahama Journal
