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The Public Sector Management of Change in Infrastructure Group Calls for Bahamas National Lottery
Related to country: Bahamas

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Think tank calls for national lottery:
By Betty Vedrine, Senior Guardian Reporter:
Nassau, Bahamas:



The government should introduce a national lottery and apply taxes to education, health care, crime and capital development, as well as enter private-public partnerships, tax households with more than two cars, increase court fines, and explore the introduction of income tax or value-added tax (VAT). These were the recommendations made yesterday by the Public Sector Management of Change in Infrastructure Group, which further recommended a tax on local beer and tobacco which can be used to install the proper infrastructure needed in the country.

The group, a think tank which consists of a cross-section of professionals from various government agencies, presented the government with a list of recommendations to improve public infrastructure and increase economic growth. These recommendations were presented during a session held yesterday at the Colonial Hilton Hotel, sponsored by the Ministry of Tourism. As part of their research, the group examined four sub-sectors: Transportation, utilities, housing (including health care and education) and security and safety. The first of its kind, the meeting was held to highlight the problem areas in the country and to present some of the possible solutions to rectify these problems.

The recommendations served to highlight the controversial issue of whether a national lottery should be introduced. This is an issue which has attracted strong objections from some, in particular the Christian Council. It is estimated that over $500 million are spent in Florida by Bahamians every year in that state's lottery, which may explain why this recommendation was made. That $500 million would be better served to help finance the $2 billion needed for total infrastructural improvements in the country. That price tag was the amount projected by the head of KPMG's Corporate Finance team Simon Townend, during the recently-held Bahamas Business Outlook.

"If we are to grow our economy by about 10 percent, then we need to grow our infrastructure significantly. The Bahamas' infrastructure need is around $2 billion minimum," he said. "The capacity of our infrastructure has to grow exponentially."

And that money, Townend believes, should also come from private and public partnerships. The think tank concurred, its research found that even if the government were to utilize traditional internal and external sources of funding, including loans from National Insurance, private commercial banks, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank, just to name a few, it would still have to seek additional sources of funding in order to meet some of its objectives.

January 18, 2008 | 5:20 PM Comments  0 comments

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