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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2023
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‘Every 100 migrants cost taxpayers $500k’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
• Crisis could ‘throw our Budget off completely’
THE MINISTRY of Finance’s top official has voiced fears that the migration crisis could “throw our Budget off completely” with taxpayers incurring an additional $500,000 in costs for every 100 new arrivals reaching Bahamian shores. Simon Wilson, the financial secretary, told Tribune Business that costs incurred in dealing with the exodus from Haiti and Cuba were chief among the unplanned “extra expenses” that the Government and Bahamian taxpayers had to absorb during the six months to end-December 2023. Speaking as the Government unveiled data on its 2022-2023 firsthalf fiscal performance, he explained that the soaring number of illegal migrants was imposing a variety of direct and indirect costs that the Public Treasury must cover. Besides the cost of more frequent repatriation flights, the Government also has to fund increased overtime payments to Immigration, police and Defence
• Top official confident ‘close to or beat’ deficit • Opposition: Gov’t ‘squandering’ revenue rise Force officers plus meet expenses associated with feeding and detaining those apprehended. Asserting that the Davis administration will be “close to or will beat” its full-year $564m fiscal deficit target, Mr Wilson told this newspaper of the unplanned first-half expenditure: “Immigration is probably the biggest one. With the repatriation exercises, it’s probably the biggest one. When we repatriate them we have to feed them, detain them and accommodate them. That can be pretty expensive. “If those numbers continue to be at the numbers they are, it will throw our Budget off completely. It could
SIMON WILSON
KWASI THOMPSON
really run up a bill. It has a knock-on effect on everything.” Subsequently providing further insight, Mr Wilson said: “I can tell you this. For every 100 migrants we will probably have to pay an extra $500,000 in direct or indirect costs. “When we see a loaded Haitian vessel, or the US coast guard says we’ve apprehended 300 migrants, that’s directly or indirectly close to $1.5m.” Keith Bell, minister of labour and Immigration, last month said The Bahamas caught and repatriated some 3,349 migrants to Haiti in 2022. Based on Mr Wilson’s
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‘Scary’ food hikes starting to stabilise By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net BAHAMIANS “finally have some hope” that food price inflation is easing, Super Value’s president says, while admitting that the past two years have been “scary” for both retailers and consumers. Debra Symonette told Tribune Business the 13-store supermarket chain is hopeful that food costs are “stabilising” and may even decrease over the rest of 2023 although she warned that any decline will not be sudden or dramatic. Confirming that she had never before experienced such rapid, broad-based
DEBRA SYMONETTE price increases of the kind seen in COVID-19’s immediate aftermath, which were worsened by subsequent supply chain bottlenecks and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she added that
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Decades-old systems hit fiscal reporting deadlines By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE GOVERNMENT’S fiscal transparency drive has burdened decades-old accounting and payroll systems with legally-mandated reporting deadlines they are not equipped to meet, a top official is asserting. Simon Wilson, the Ministry of Finance’s financial secretary, told Tribune Business that The Bahamas had gone about imposing increased accountability and governance in reverse fashion by setting reporting deadlines prior to getting the necessary systems in place rather than the other way around.
Emphasising that he “fully supports” enhanced fiscal transparency, he said the Government’s accounting and payroll systems - 32 years-old and 22 years-old, respectively - have never been “integrated” and struggle to produce accurate numbers in accordance with the deadlines set by the Public Finance Management Act. The Davis administration has constantly come under fire from the Opposition for failing to meet the reporting timeline set out by the Act, but Mr Wilson told this newspaper: “Let’s put it this way. Our accounting system is 32 years-old. It has never
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‘Egregious conduct’: Ex-PLP MP faces law profession axe By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net A FORMER PLP MP and Senator faces being disbarred from the Bahamian legal profession over “the most serious and egregious” conduct related to client monies that were to pay $116,300 in due taxes. A four-person Bahamas Bar Association disciplinary tribunal, in a February 15 ruling, ordered that Pleasant Bridgewater “be struck from the roll” of practicing attorneys after she was unable to account for funds advanced to her by a client to cover closing costs for a real estate transaction. The tribunal, headed by Supreme Court justice, Renae McKay, noted that the complaint against the one-time Marco City MP by Gary and Janis Belcher had remained unresolved for now close to 15 years and there was “no evidence” that Ms Bridgewater “has or can otherwise account for the funds”. The Belchers, expatriate real estate investors, had
PLEASANT BRIDGEWATER agreed in 2008 to acquire Lot 44 in ‘The Isles of Old Bahama Bay’ for some $1.163m. Ms Bridgewater acted as attorney for both the Belchers, as buyers, and the vendor, Dale Johanneson, and the transaction closed with the latter receiving the required sales proceeds. However, the Belchers subsequently accused Ms Bridgewater of failing to pay the 10 percent Stamp Duty (now VAT) to the Public Treasury despite the necessary funds being advanced to her. They alleged that she has “failed
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