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News > College Professor Warns of "Economic Apartheid"
College Professor Warns of "Economic Apartheid"Delivering a sobering assessment of the Bahamian economic structure, Associate Professor, School of Business, The College of The Bahamas, Dr. Olivia Saunders, has labeled it the most oppressive economic model that fails to empower and develop Bahamians and warned of disastrous consequences if it is retained. Dr. Saunders was one of the presenters at the 20th Bahamas Business Outlook held on Thursday, January 13th at the Wyndham Nassau Resort, Cable Beach under the theme: Diversifying The Bahamian Economy; Fact, Fiction or The Real Alternative. "Our economic model perpetuates an economic apartheid. We operate in a world capitalist system and operate an economic model that hinders, nay restricts, our general citizenry from owning capital in the key wealth generating sectors, while fostering capital ownership from within The Bahamas by non-Bahamians," she said while delivering a presentation entitled: Bahamian National Evolution. The Bahamian economy is primarily services based with the bulk of government revenue being earned through customs duties, taxes on international trade and indirect taxes. Classifying this as a dependency model, Dr. Saunders said it is designed for The Bahamas to relinquish responsibility for its resources and the commanding heights of its economy. Under this structure, she pointed out, residents are limited to being labour and consumers while the owners of the economy, foreign nationals and a small minority of locals amass great wealth. Dr. Saunders also characterized the current tax regime, where the burden of taxes rests primarily on consumers, as the most economically oppressive because of our addictive reliance on foreign investment. "It is now time for us to put aside our religious devotion to this economic model we had in place for well more than a century. An economic model is only a model of how an economy functions. The Bahamas is much more than an economy. The Bahamas is a nation. This nation comprises human beings. The entirety of focus for any policymaker has to be the evolutionary progression of the nation - the evolutionary progression of its people and those institutions which serve the people." The business professor acknowledged, however, that Majority Rule brought an inevitable modification when investments in social institutions, especially education, provided a much higher quality Bahamian labour force and human capital that allowed for broader and deeper participation in the economy. Mapping a course of action on the way forward, Dr. Saunders urged the adoption of an inclusive, dynamic economic structure that embraces the genius of the Bahamian people and participatory governance. "Within The College of The Bahamas’ community alone - faculty, students and graduates, can be found persons who can find solutions to any problems facing the country today. The capacity to design any physical or organizational structure for developing the country exists within The Bahamas and its people. Bahamians are endowed with the aptitude, the expertise to own and operate any organization we decide is vital to our progress, our development and for nation building," she said. Dr. Saunders delivered her presentation just hours after Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham told the same audience that he recognizes the impulse by some to diminish the resilience of tourism as an economic sector, but he also identified what he termed a failure to recognize the opportunity for diversification which exists within the sector itself. Adding that tourism is one of the fastest growing economic activities globally and industrial economies have been benefitting from it long before the island economies recognized its enormous potential for economic growth, the prime minister said the extent to which creativity and innovation occur will largely depend on the ambitions, capabilities and pursuits of the entrepreneurial community. The new dispensation that Dr. Saunders envisions encompasses broad-based developmental objectives for nation building and a new economy that liberates the Bahamian brilliance, cultivates sustainable communities and extends wealth to the Bahamian citizenry.
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