05162022 BUSINESS

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business@tribunemedia.net

MONDAY, MAY 16, 2022

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Confusion over need for approvals over Potter’s Cay rebuild By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net A CABINET minister said if Potter’s Cay vendors want to rebuild their stalls in the water they would have to get permission from the Department of Environmental Planning and Protection (DEPP). Clay Sweeting, Minister of Agriculture, Marine Resources and Family Island Affairs, told Tribune Business that if vendors want to build their stalls in the water they would first have to get DEPP to do so, but under any other circumstance they are free to rebuild their stalls where they previously were before the fire destroyed them in April, 2021. Mr Sweeting was responding to complaints made by Wendi Constantine, president of the Bahamas Dock and Allied Venues Vendors

POTTERS CAY DOCK FISH STALLS

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No slowdown in bookings yet after CDC raised risk warning By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net THERE has been no slowdown so far in bookings after the US Centers for Disease Control raised the COVID risk rating for The Bahamas to level two - but hoteliers are on the alert as new subvariants are spreading in the US and could reach our shores. Robert Sands, the Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association’s president, told Tribune Business: “Recognising that the continued prevalence of highly transmissible Omicron subvariants globally (in particular within key source markets) may be helping

ROBERT SANDS (amongst other factors) to fuel the uptick in cases globally; while the level 2 (Moderate) CDC travel health notice designation is not the direction we wish to go as a destination; it is

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FNM leader: Filling top BPL role ‘a move in the right direction’ By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net THE Opposition’s leader said the hiring of a new Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) chief executive officer is “a move in the right direction” - although he wants answers over why a cooling-off period was not followed from the new appointee’s previous role. Michael Pintard told Tribune Business: “It is important for Prime Minister Davis to ensure that the entire complement of

SHEVONN CAMBRIDGE senior staff members are in place at BPL and that it would be a ‘mistake’ to leave the critical positions

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Pintard: Govt needs to speak with one voice on VAT By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net FNM leader Michael Pintard says the government needs to clarify its position at the cabinet level on reducing Value Added Tax (VAT) on breadbasket items. Mr Pintard told Tribune Business that Michael Halkitis, Minister for Economic Affairs, “has minimal influence” on how some of the critical decisions are being made in the Ministry of Finance. Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis is the substantive minister and delegates most of the important decisions to his financial secretary, Simon Wilson, Mr Pintard said. He added: “One of the problems this administration is having is that you have three different positions oftentimes being expressed on very critical issues. That sends the wrong message both to the

MICHAEL PINTARD doormat domestic and the international arena.” The issue over the reintroduction of VAT on breadbasket items has raised questions over the governing Progressive Liberal Party’s claim of helping the poor and marginalised. On January 1, the Davis administration reduced VAT to 10 percent from 12 percent on all items, however they re-introduced VAT on breadbasket items that were before then zerorated to 10 percent.

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