Did The Unregulated Market Steal Christmas, Nassau, Bahamas?

by Jerome Pinder

Over the last two days, I have heard from several business persons that Christmas sales were not as good as they hoped for.  Some have said that sales were down by as much as 50%, compared to the previous year.  If this trend is more wide spread, it offers little hope for the New Year, as many small businesses were holding on to see if Christmas sales would pull them through.  Will the Country now be faced with more closures and layoffs in the first quarter of 2010?

Business persons this season also faced a rise in competition from street vendors, in addition to the global recession. From what I see and understand, we have allowed a flea market to be born at R M Bailey Park.  Certainly from a drive by, I do not see any business licenses hanging from the tents.  Do these street vendors have licenses to operate?  Do they pay any fees to Government?  Do they pay fees for use of the park?  Do they pay NIB contributions for themselves? 

While I appreciate that the above individuals are trying to earn a living, they are placing unfair competition on the legitimate business persons who are employing Bahamians, paying NIB contributions, paying rent, business licenses, duty, etc. etc.  How can they be expected to compete with an unregulated person selling from under a tent?  Will we have shot ourselves in the foot when the legitimate businesses are forced to layoff staff in the New Year?  Business Persons know how difficult it is to operate in this Country in the good years, not to mention the unprecedented challenges faced in 2009. 

On a related subject, I understand that the Cruise Line 10 bag per cabin policy has facilitated many of these imports for the Christmas Season.  While I am not proposing that we interfere with free enterprise and have this 10 bag policy restricted, it would certainly be interesting to see what customs revenue was collected at the Port over the holiday season?  From media reports, Customs did not have the man power on the dock to handle the baggage volume.  What was the average custom duty claim for a cabin bringing 5 to 10 bags back?  Would we have been better off to impose a fee per bag at the Port?  Say $50 per bag, so for 10 bags a cabin had to pay $500 in duty.  This would have resulted in less man power and I would guess more revenue for the Country. 

So, did this unregulated market steal Christmas for the legitimate business person?  The New Year will tell us.