business@tribunemedia.net
TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 2020
$4.58 ‘No turning back’ on plastic bag charge By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net THE government yesterday asserted there is no turning back on the 25 cents fee for single-use plastic bags as retailers complained they are taking the brunt of consumer complaints. Dr Rhianna NeelyMurphy, the Department of Environmental Health’s senior environmental officer, told Tribune Business it had been forced to respond to “incorrect information” about the nature of the per bag charge and the purpose of the sixmonth transition period afforded to businesses and consumers alike. “The (incorrect) message was that the transition phase is there to help businesses get rid of their stock, and the second incorrect message was that the 25 cents was a tax,” she said. “The 25 cents is not a tax; the 25cents is a fee, which we hope people do not pay because they will be travelling with their reusable bags. “The six-month period is here to help people to adjust to living life with less plastic. The ministry [of the environment and housing] is not going back on the 25 cents. The 25 cents is a fee that is associated with the purchase of a plastic bag. If you do not want to purchase a plastic bag you do not have to pay the 25 cents. “The 25 cents is there as a deterrent. The ministry wishes people to travel with their reusable bags so that they do not have to pay the 25 cents.” The fees levied upon single-use plastic bags are retained by the retailer, and not passed to the government. However, Bahamian merchants yesterday complained that they feel “caught in the middle” between the ban and consumer disquiet over the fee. Don Davis, general manager of Quality Home Centre, said yesterday: “The issue I have now, today, is the Government is forcing us to charge for these plastic bags and, if we don’t charge the 25 cents, they come around and charge you $2,000 in fines. “It’s not the merchants. The merchants are put in a bind right now. We always give away the bags, but now the Government is forcing us to charge this 25 cents
SEE PAGE 3
$4.59
Bahamas needs $670m for ‘first world’ health facilities By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
T
HE Bahamas needs a $670m capital investment to “bring our healthcare facilities into the 21st century and up to par with the first world”, a Cabinet minister revealed yesterday. Dr Duane Sands, pictured, minister of health, confirmed to Tribune Business that the government’s vision for an “ideal system to care” for the Bahamian people involves replacing both Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) and Freeport’s Rand Memorial Hospital through a combined spend exceeding half a billion dollars. He disclosed that the government had been asked to think big, and lay out a design “as if money was no object”, ahead of next week’s “pledge conference” that aims to raise millions of dollars in private sector donations to finance Hurricane Dorian reconstruction efforts. Government documents, released ahead of the January 13 event, detail the scale of The Bahamas’ needs wish list in multiple areas including healthcare,
• Govt gives ‘ideal system’ vision to Dorian donors • Next PMH upgrade pegged at $200m-$250m • 28 emergency room admissions had no beds
housing, the environment, infrastructure and the micro, small and mediumsized enterprise (MSME) sector. They peg the costs of replacing PMH and the Rand Memorial Hospital at $500m and $120m, respectively, requiring a combined investment of $620m. The third, and final, healthcare project detailed in papers seen by Tribune Business involves a $50m investment to construct and “repurpose” health clinics across Abaco and the cays in Dorian’s wake. Dr Sands conceded he has “no idea” whether the pledging conference will
raise sums that get even remotely close to these targets, but added that its organisers had encouraged the government to lay out its ideals as if there were no limitations on what can be achieved. “We were asked to look at what would be truly impactful,” he told Tribune Business. “If we’re going to make an ask, the question would be: Are you going to limp into the next year or truly generate resilience moving forward? “Given the fact we have been asked to think even more liberally about the future in terms of the pledging conference, there’s a basic concept of what it would take to bring our healthcare facilities into the 21st century and bring them up to par with any facility in South Florida or the first world. That’s what translates into $500m [for PMH]. “What we’ve been asked to do, if money was no object, is to design or consider the health system that would be ideal to care for the population... In terms of
A BAHAMAS-based oil explorer and its advisers yesterday said they plan to seek the Securities Commission’s permission to open their newly-launched mutual fund to small local retail investors. The Bahamas Petroleum Company (BPC) disclosed that its £2m BPC Investment Fund, which began taking subscriptions yesterday, is for the time being only open to sophisticated institutional investors - such as pension funds, insurance companies, investment houses and other money managers - and not individual Bahamian investors. The oil explorer, which plans to drill its first exploratory well in Bahamian waters during the 2020 first half, said the BPC Investment Fund had been
need, it is very clear that if we were to do this entirely on our own based on the cash flow of the Government of The Bahamas, or the borrowing of the Government of The Bahamas, there’s a limit to how far we can get in the short term.” Dr Sands said the decision on whether to rebuild or upgrade PMH was “for the future”, but added that “a number of components” must be addressed to ensure it can fulfill its role as The Bahamas’ acute healthcare facility “for another 20 to 40 years”. “We have costed out the next phase, which is the emergency room, maternal child health and imaging, and the price tag we’ve got for that is between $200$250m,” he told Tribune Business. “We already have pretty advanced ideas about maternal child health. Bear in mind we made that a manifesto commitment in 2017. We have pretty clear renderings, costings etc, and
SEE PAGE 4
DPM pledges to ‘speed up’ small business Dorian relief By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE government is aiming to “speed up” financial help for Dorianhit businesses, the deputy prime minister said yesterday, although its $10m facility is likely to meet less than 25 percent of their needs. K Peter Turnquest told Tribune Business the process was “not going as fast as we’d like”, with the government now seeking “to address the issue internally” in a bid to restore micro, small and medium-sized businesses (MSME) to full health “as quickly as possible”. He spoke after the government revealed that the demand for post-Dorian assistance among entrepreneurs on Abaco and Grand Bahama could be more than four times’ greater than the $10m loan guarantee, grant and equity financing initiative it put in
• Process ‘not going as fast as we’d like’ • MSME sector needs may reach $43m • Four times’ the facility offered by govt
K PETER TURNQUEST place in the category five storm’s aftermath. It disclosed that the combined losses suffered by the 160 MSMEs that have submitted financial assistance requests to-date, representing just five percent of 3,546 such firms on the two Dorian-hit islands, are equivalent to $8.65m or 87 percent of the $10m made available.
With the Small Business Development Centre (SBDC) estimating that Dorian impacted 75 percent of Abaco small businesses, and 60 percent of their Grand Bahama counterparts, the government said these projections - when combined with the average $18,000 in funding provided to successful applicants todate - showed “the recovery costs for small businesses may reach some $43m”. This indicates that The Bahamas needs to bridge a $33m funding gap to restore MSMES in the disaster-hit areas to full health. A government paper, drawing on Department of Inland Revenue tax filing data, said such companies - defined as having a workforce of less than 50 persons, and with annual revenues of under
Oil explorer aims to open fund to small Bahamians By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
$4.66
• Leno to seek Securities Commission go-ahead • BPC’s £ 2m fund launches to institutions only • Will hold near 5% of firm if fully subscribed licensed as a locally-domiciled “professional” fund. This type of fund, under Bahamian law, can only be pitched at “sophisticated” and “institutional” investors who are well-versed in the risks, as well as the rewards, of the underlying investments. However, BPC said Leno Corporate Services, the investment fund’s Bahamian adviser and placement agent, planned to apply to the Securities Commission for it to be reclassified as a “standard” fund that can offer shares to the general public and ordinary Bahamian retail investors. “The fund has initially been licensed as a ‘professional’ fund such that
qualifying professional/ institutional investors will be able to subscribe for shares in the fund,” BPC said. “However, Leno intends to make application to the Bahamian Securities Commission for reclassification of the fund as a ‘standard’ fund, which would allow participation in the fund by non-professional retail investors in The Bahamas should such approval be granted. “The Securities Commission will arrive at a decision on this application in due course, and the company will provide further updates on this process when appropriate.” Many Bahamian retail investors are likely to be
angered at the BPC Investment Fund only being opened to investments made by large institutions, with the perception being that the “small man” is once again being denied the opportunity to make a wealth-creating investment that could drastically improve their economic well-being. However, others will argue that the fund’s status as a “professional” fund is entirely appropriate as the investment opportunity is only suitable for sophisticated investors able to both understand its high reward/high risk potential and absorb any subsequent losses.
SEE PAGE 4
$5m - generated $411.126m in combined sales in 2018 and employed 4,500 people. The MSME sector will be a key focus at next Monday Dorian “pledging conference”, where the government is teaming with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), supported by the US and UK governments, to seek recovery donations from the private sector, high-networth individuals, other governments and donors who have expressed interest in assisting with the recovery. Mr Turnquest yesterday acknowledged that reviving the small business sector on Abaco and Grand Bahama was “critical” to postDorian recovery given the vital role it plays in driving
SEE PAGE 3
$4.63 Govt eyes $40m waste-to-energy Abaco solution By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE government is eyeing a $40m waste-toenergy package as part of a $140m solution to the postDorian clean-up challenges in Abaco. Documents released ahead of next Monday’s “pledging” conference, in which the government has teamed with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to seek private sector funding for reconstruction, reveal that it wants to convert the waste generated by the storm into an energy-producing fuel. Arguing that gasification has “significant advantages” compared to merely incinerating Dorian-related debris, the papers call for the creation of a waste-to-power gasification plant on Abaco to “help stabilise the cost of electricity for residents and eliminate further environmental damage at the landfill”. Besides using existing technology as a power source for desalination, the government is also hoping to seize the opportunity provided by Dorian’s devastation to “enable The Bahamas-based development of waste management policy to eliminate industrial wastes, tires etc via gasification” Other objectives, for which the government will be seeking private sector donations to fulfill, are the creation of “a waterside facility to take single-use plastic and other wastes for a fee, and use it as a feedstock to produce clean water and energy, while reducing volumes of ocean plastic”. All this is designed to relieve the “additional stress” on Abaco’s Snake City landfill site following Dorian. That facility was described by the government’s report as “already struggling” with fires a “daily nightmare” for island residents. As a result, the Ministry of the Environment and Housing’s $140m wish list also includes $50m to help with further debris clearance; $7.5m to rehabilitate the Snake City location; $3m to demolish unsafe structures; and a further $40m to help remove marine debris from Abaco’s waterways. “In North Abaco, partially destroyed homes will have to be demolished and disaster waste and debris managed,” the government
SEE PAGE 3