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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2022
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Chamber chief urges rethink on minimum wage and breadbasket By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
go” given that it will increase marginal labour costs for employers, especially micro and small businesses who are already “struggling to hold on to employees” and meet payroll. Speaking after the Prime Minister yesterday pledged that the Government was
ready “to make critical policy interventions” to offset eroding living standards, Mr Laroda argued that one place to start was to reconsider the wisdom of eliminating the VAT ‘zero rating’ on breadbasket foods, medicines and other essentials.
GREG LARODA “The Government should revisit this 10 percent on breadbasket items,” the GB Chamber chief told this newspaper. “As prices go up in the
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Kanoo ‘100% vindicated’ over Health Travel Visa By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net A BAHAMIAN digital payments provider yesterday said it had been “100 percent vindicated” by the Auditor General’s findings on the role it played in the Health Travel Visa initiative. Nicholas Rees, Kanoo’s chairman, told Tribune
Business that the report by the Government’s financial watchdog “shows there’s been no malfeasance or misappropriation” of fees paid by travellers complying with The Bahamas’ COVID entry protocols after tourism re-opened on November 1, 2020. While the company “bore the entire brunt” of attacks on the Health Travel Visa during the Minnis administration’s
term in office, he added that these accusations had been “put to bed” by an Auditor General’s Office report that found the $456,993 compensation it received for providing the initiative’s payment gateway over a ten-month period “appears to be within industry norms”.
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NICHOLAS REES
Used car dealer absorbing 50% of price hikes By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net A BAHAMIAN used car dealer yesterday revealed just 50 percent of the price hikes he has experienced on Japanese vehicles have been passed on to local consumers. Brent Fox, Montague Motors principal, told Tribune Business he would “drive business away” unless he absorbed half of the 20-25 percent increase on Japanese used vehicle imports as he confirmed that the auto market is not immune from global inflationary pressures. While Japanese vehicles have experienced
nowhere near the 40 percent year-over-year price increase suffered by their US counterparts, Mr Fox said: “We’ve certainly felt the increasing prices out of Japan. I would say the price we’re paying has gone up 20 percent, and in some cases 25 percent, from around November. It’s gone up maybe 20-25 percent. “The price didn’t really go up like it did in the US. There was a three to four month delay, and then Japan followed suit. I have a friend in Baltimore who typically has 300 to 400 cars in his lot, and when I spoke to him in September/
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Judge paves way for new Water Corp union election By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE SUPREME Court has paved the way for new elections at the Water & Sewerage Corporation’s line staff union after dismissing a fresh challenge to the decision not to certify the original poll. Justice Loren Klein, in a February 15, 2022, verdict, rejected the Judicial Review bid by Dwayne Woods, the Bahamas Utilities Services & Allied Workers Union (BUSAWU) president, and his slate of candidates, by backing the reasons given by Dion Foulkes,
ex-minister of labour, not to recognise the original poll. And, in so doing, the judge discharged an injunction that previously prevented the registrar of trade unions, who is also the director of labour, from supervising a new election for the BUSAWU. Noting that Mr Woods and his team had mounted multiple unsuccessful legal bids to have the original vote certified, Justice Klein said there were missed opportunities to resolve the dispute sooner. In particular, he questioned Mr Foulkes’ assertion that he was prevented by another Judicial Review proceeding from
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Fidelity’s ‘ace in hole’ on $25m profit target • Preference share payout to give $1.1m boost • To get approval for new $50m bond framework • Recovered $8.6m in COVID loan loss provisions
• Calls for VAT’s elimination on food staples • And business ‘struggles’ need pay delay • Out Islands’ facing ‘double’ inflation hit
GRAND Bahama’s Chamber of Commerce president yesterday urged the Government to eliminate VAT on “breadbasket” food items to counter soaring inflation and delay a minimum wage increase. Greg Laroda told Tribune Business that reimposing the 10 percent levy on food staples had “made it all the more challenging” for low income Bahamian families to feed themselves and make ends meet amid the sustained increase in prices that this nation is suffering across-the-board. And he argued that increasing the minimum wage at this time “is not the way to
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By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net A BISX-listed bank has an “ace in the hole” when it comes to hitting its $25m profits target for 2022, its top executive revealed yesterday. Gowon Bowe, Fidelity Bank (Bahamas) chief executive, told Tribune BusiGOWON BOWE ness that the planned May 2022 redemption of its remaining $20m preference shares will save two-thirds of the annual $1.1m in total interest it has to pay to holders of that debt. As a result, with almost two-thirds of its 2022 financial year remaining following the redemption, around $733,000 in interest savings will drop straight to the commercial bank’s bottom line as it chases a near 13 percent year-over-year increase on last year’s $22.17m net income. “We still believe we have an opportunity to grow the profit base by another 15 percent, so we are certainly targeting $25m and upwards,” Mr Bowe told this newspaper of
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