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TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 2020
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Retailer urges: Relax lockdown on business
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
A BAHAMIAN retailer yesterday urged the government to permit businesses to open for a short time daily to ease the economic pain just hours before the prime minister tightened the lockdown. Andrew Wilson, Quality Business Centre’s (QBC) principal, told Tribune Business that such an approach would give Bahamian workers much-needed financial “sustenance” while enabling firms to pay at least some of their bills during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pledging that there was “absolutely no doubt” that his retail formats will reopen once the crisis has passed, Mr Wilson warned that companies already “on the margins” may not with the Bahamian economic landscape likely to
be radically reshaped by the pandemic. “What would be helpful would be if the government allowed businesses to open for a short period of time,” he argued. “It gives the employees sustenance, and allows the business to pay their bills. “I look at what’s happening around the world, and the better option would be to let businesses open for two to three days a week, or ‘X’ number of hours every day a week, so consumers can also get what they need to mitigate against everything that’s happening.” Dr Hubert Minnis, though, took the opposite approach last night by unveiling a new emergency order that intensifies the nationwide lockdown The Bahamas has been placed under until month’s end. This effectively shuts The Bahamas’ borders, extends
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Sandals closing leaves Exuma ‘eerily quiet’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net SANDALS Emerald Bay’s closure will have “a devastating impact” on an Exuma economy that has “more to lose” from the COVID-19 pandemic than other islands, Tribune Business was told yesterday. Pedro Rolle, Exuma’s Chamber of Commerce president, described the island as being “eerily quiet” and akin to “Christmas without the festivities”
after its major employer confirmed it was closing for six weeks from month’s end due to the global pandemic. Estimating that Sandals was responsible for the direct and indirect employment of at least 600 persons, Mr Rolle urged Nassau not to forget the contribution made by Family Islands that were primarily “small business economies” which will need significant financial assistance to ride-out the coming economic storm.
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Lockdown sparks increased security services demand By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net BAHAMIAN security companies yesterday reported an increased demand for their services due to the nationwide lockdown stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. Chris Adderley, Westech Security’s managing director, told Tribune Business he had seen multiple requests for more security personnel as a result of the government’s emergency move, and said: “Because of many business closures
most of our clients have not needed security services, but some places wanted more. “Business has increased in some instances. The lockdown is in effect, and you would have businesses that were unprotected. They have called for security in those places. On the first night of the lockdown, five persons raided one of our customer’s places at the Airport Industrial Park. “I really would request for more police patrols, particularly for businesses on the western side of the
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‘Back to ground zero’ over Dorian recovery By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
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BACO’S Chamber of Commerce president yesterday said the island’s post-Dorian recovery has been plunged “back to ground zero” by the COVID-19 crisis, adding: “We’re on our own again.” Ken Hutton told Tribune Business that the emergency nationwide lockdown announced by the government to curb the pandemic’s spread had worsened Abaco’s existing labour shortages by
• COVID-19 pandemic ‘stalls’ Abaco rebuild • Island ‘in back seat, if not pushed out car’ • PM acts on Abaco’s private aviation fears
KEN HUTTON
provoking workers to return home. With the world and Nassau’s attention firmly focused on combating the virus, Mr Hutton voiced fears that international assistance would dry up - especially since all nongovernmental (NGO) and relief agencies had now departed Abaco in response to the pandemic. He suggested that the island is being forced to
“take a back seat, if not being pushed out of the car altogether” by COVID-19, but is likely to have been satisfied by the Prime Minister’s decision last night to effectively close The Bahamas’ borders to inbound and outbound passenger traffic. Prior to Dr Hubert Minnis’ national address,
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Ex-BDB chair: Govt has ‘$2.5bn problem’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net AN EX-Bahamas Development Bank (BDB) chairman yesterday argued that mass COVID-19 related unemployment will give the government “a $2.5bn problem” it has no choice but to finance. Lynden Nairn told Tribune Business the Minnis administration’s estimates of the economic fall-out were too optimistic, and that it appeared to be “preparing for the best and hoping for the best”, just hours before the prime minister tightened the nationwide lockdown imposed on The Bahamas and the private sector. Arguing that the tourism industry’s shutdown could leave as many as 100,000 Bahamians jobless, or on
• Argues too optimistic on COVID-19 outlook • Calls for increased, extended jobless benefit • That Bahamians must pay back after crisis reduced incomes, for an indefinite period, he argued that the government needed to extend both the duration and amount of unemployment benefit that will be provided. Mr Nairn, who was appointed to head the BDB when the current government took office, called for the National Insurance Board’s (NIB) unemployment benefit to be extended - or quadrupled - from 13 weeks to 52 weeks given the continuing uncertainty over how long the coronavirus pandemic will last. And, taking $400 as the “average salary”, he suggested that this be the weekly amount workers
receive over that period. Acknowledging that this would amount to a $2bnplus expense for both NIB and the government, each of which has their respective financial challenges, Mr Nairn said there was no alternative but for workers and taxpayers to cover the holes created once the challenge had passed. Warning that potentially dire socioeconomic consequences meant the government had no choice but to act, Mr Nairn argued that The Bahamas could not afford to leave 100,000 Bahamians “on the street trying to live off a fraction of what they are used to”. While the likes of James
Smith, former governor and minister of state for finance, have estimated that the hotel industry’s shutdown could leave close to one in three Bahamian workers unemployed and take the national jobless rate to 30 percent, Mr Nairn argued that such projections underestimate the tourism sector’s indirect impact on virtually every sector of the economy. “Because circumstances have changed so drastically, my current recommendation is that as many as 100,000 Bahamians will be laid off, or their work hours
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