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REMARKS
BY
THE
HON. FRED MITCHELL MP
MINISTER
OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS &
THE
PUBLIC SERVICE
THE
BAHAMAS INSTITUTE OF FINANCIAL SERVICES
28TH
ANNUAL AWARDS BANQUET
SANDALS
ROYAL BAHAMIAN RESORTS AND SPA
2ND
OCTOBER 2004
I am honoured to have been asked to be here this evening at this
28th annual awards banquet.
This is the 30th year of the Institute and its work.
I wish to congratulate all of those who were its founders,
organizers, leaders, members and students. It has an enviable reputation
for quality and excellence. I am happy to be associated with it.
I am certain that I speak for all of my colleagues in the
Government when I say that we are proud of what has been accomplished
here.
As Paul McWeeney was speaking, I allowed myself a brief time to
reminisce about how some of the leaders here today and myself are all
connected. I have known
Paul for quite a long time, first as brother of my friend and schoolmate
Sean McWeeney, a former Attorney General. Paul of course has his own reputation and life, and is doing
a fine job at it. Dr.
Rodney Smith, is a former classmate of mine from the class of 1970 at
St. Augustine's College in Fox Hill, and later while I was finishing my
Master’s Degree at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in
the United States, he was on his way to first his Master’s and then
doctorate from the School of Education.
I am happy to be able to welcome him back to The Bahamas as head
of the College of The Bahamas. I want to say that we expect great things from you.
Nat Beneby and I go a long long way back.
If you saw us forty years ago, we would have been dressed in the
white short pants and pink shirts of the then the Eastern Junior School,
now Palmdale Primary. William Delancy is another contemporary; we grew up a
stone’s throw from each other in the Centreville neighbourhood.
I wanted to do that, not only to reaffirm my sense of community
with the people who are here this evening, but to make the larger point,
that all of us have come a very long way.
We have succeeded from humble and often difficult circumstances,
certainly less auspicious circumstances than those in which we find
ourselves today. None of us, I believe have forgotten our starts in
life, and the responsibility to ensure that there is a hand up for
everyone. That certainly is
an abiding principle of my own life.
I know my deceased parents would have had it no other way.
I certainly want to congratulate them, all the names of my
contemporaries that I have just called for all the fine work that they
are doing toward the uplifting of The Bahamas through their work in the
private sector. I
want to congratulate all of those who will receive their certificates
this evening for their hard work and perseverance.
I know that it could not have been easy.
I wish you every success. I
wish to congratulate the special honorees: Rosemary Hanna, Christopher
Dorsett, Glen Nottage, Eleanor Campbell, Anne Margaret Russell and Judy
A. Brown. Your honour is
well deserved. I wish you
also every success.
I have just come from the United Nations, where I delivered the
country’s annual address to that body.
I wish to quote a paragraph from that statement in New York,
which was delivered on Thursday 29th September and is the
Governments' official statement about its views of the world in which we
live. I quote:
“The Bahamas joins with other Caricom countries in
voicing our concern about the persistent attempt on the part of some of
the developed world’s unelected multilateral bodies to exclude
developing countries from decision-making and norm setting processes
thereby undermining our economies.
Chief amongst these is the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development. The
decisions of these bodies are not friendly acts.
We repeat the call we made last year about the need for a global
forum to deal with these unfair practices.
We welcome the work that has been done in the Economic and Social
Council of the UN to redress the balance in favour of a level playing
field. The arrangements for
dealing with international tax matters in particular are a source of
concern. We pledge to
continue to work with the UN toward establishing a world body that will
deal with these matters in a fair and balanced way.”
That important statement is part of the ongoing effort led by the
Minister of Financial Services Allyson Maynard Gibson and the Attorney
General Alfred Sears to defend the interests of The Bahamas and this
sector which has provided such an important lift in our development for
over fifty years. We
have been making the case that this country as a sovereign country
should be able to make and choose its own tax laws and systems, and to
decide what level of regulation is needed for the country's best
interest.
We came to office complaining that in our view that legislation
had shifted the balance away from the right of the individual to
privacy. One does of course
understand that norms change, and that the ground often shifts, one does
not back away from the internationally accepted standards, but it is
also important to protect our way of life.
A balance must be struck. That
is what the Government is committed to do.
I know that the Prime Minister believes passionately in our
Financial Services sector and the need to nurture and protect it.
I have a personal interest because the constituency that I have
the honour to represent is largely a middle class constituency; with
hundreds of workers from the Financial Services sector who have a fairly
good way of life as a result of the work in the sector.
I therefore work assiduously to protect it.
What is sometimes disconcerting is that public opinion in The
Bahamas is so easily destabilized by the slightest public move by the
Government, which would seem to cause some discomfort in international
relations. But sometimes
that discomfort is necessary, if we are to win our point.
The public at large and the financial services sector must
therefore have faith that we know what we are doing.
The question that we have asked a number of our developed
partners who have come to us for example asking us to sign Mutual Legal
Assistance Treaties, is ‘why should we agree to such treaties when for
example you make it difficult or impossible or our citizens to enter
your country to trade and to do business?’
There is no doubt that some of them are in a stronger position
than us in the world economy but it seems to us that a fundamental tenet
of Foreign Affairs is that when they come to you because they want
something, you must also have your list for something in return.
That is the way it usually works.
You who are bankers may be aware of the vexing problem of the
Schengen visa. There is at present no consulate or embassy that is able
to issue those visas in The Bahamas, and often Bahamian businessmen and
tourists have to wait for up to five weeks in order to get visas to
enter countries in Europe. I
was recently told by our Ambassador in New York of an example where five
middle aged women, all of them professionals who wished to travel to a
European country and it took them five weeks to get the visa.
When the Bahamian delegation went to Rome to visit
the Pope for the presentation of the Pallium to the new Bahamian
Archbishop, it took some of those persons up to two weeks without their
passports to get visas to enter Italy.
This is further made difficult if you are a Bahamian living in
another jurisdiction like Bermuda.
The problems of visa access to European countries increase.
I made the point in my UN Address as follows: “All states
ought to act with caution in putting in place rules and regulations for
travel, lest the denial of those rights cannot be defended by logic or
objectivity. This is
especially so where we note that developed countries argue in favour of
free trade and globalization but deny the benefits of that trade to
legitimate travelers by administrative discrimination and bureaucratic
procedures and delay.”
The larger point that I made to each European delegation that I
had to honour to meet in New York was that the European Union and the
Schengen countries are all technologically developed countries.
There should be no excuse for either not allowing a consulate or
Embassy in this country like the High Commission of Britain from the EU
to issue the visas or an honorary consulate to do so or simply moving
Bahamians from the common visa list so that we can enter their countries
without visas as they do ours. It is that simple.
Their response is no. It
is not that simple. But it
is remarkable that when they come to our countries if we delay for even
a week, we are suddenly reported to these unelected multilateral bodies
of which I spoke as being non-co-operating countries.
I say: you should give a little to get a little.
But in international affairs many argue that, there is one rule
for the powerful and another rule for the less powerful.
It is important for you to understand the arguments, and the
necessity of why we want to accomplish all of this.
We are seeking to do it for the business community, you amongst
them to make it easy for you to get around the globe and do the work
which you do so well.
I happen also to be the Minister for the Public Service.
As you know the Government has committed itself to public sector
and public service reform. I
can tell you that this is not an easy job. The entrenched interests are
strong and powerful, and the election cycle in the country acts toward
defeating any reform effort. I
have adopted the following definition of public sector reform by
Professor Charles Cambridge. He argues that public sector reform is to lay the
infrastructure both physical and social so that the public sector can
produce more jobs for the private sector.
In other words, the primary job of the public service and the
public sector is to produce jobs for the economy in the private sector.
The sector as presently constituted does not meet that elementary
definition, and Ministers struggle daily with what to do to get the
decisions made and executed in an accurate fashion so that the economy
can get up and going. This
is a sensitive political matter given the fact that there are 20,000
persons who work for the service and entrenched bureaucracies have a lot
of voting power. There can
be active opposition by threatening to vote out the politicians who push
too hard. There can be more
insidious, passive but no less aggressive measures like delay that can
also be the bane of any reforming politicians.
But the problem of the slowness and the lateness and the
deficiency of execution is not only a problem of which people complain
in the public service. I
have described it in another forum as a cultural issue.
The inability in the country for us to make decisions and to get
things done.
My favourite anecdote to help to explain what I mean is the story
of our public ceremonies for example.
Here we are in a modern country, that is to provide a world-class
product, and we can’t seem to start anything on time, and finish it in
a disciplined and crisp manner. I
have said in another context that - left to me - I could reduce all
public ceremonies in the country down to one hour or less.
I think that could be the greatest legacy I could ever leave to
public life in The Bahamas. Let us face it. We
are no longer living in a village.
This is no longer 1940, where all one has to do is sit around for
an entire day listening to speeches and endless praise.
There is life to get on with, as they say: things to do and
people to see.
We ought to clearly understand the role of the division of labour;
that we don’t all have to speak, and we don’t all have to be in the
same place, all making the same decisions.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time.
That I hope is a lesson learned by all bankers in particular,
where the complaint is that often decisions are not made as quickly and
expeditiously as they ought to. But certainly your sector’s organizations such as this have
established a means of addressing the problems. We are seeking to borrow a page out of your book in the
public sector as well.
So let me say again, that we are proud of what you do.
This institute was first established in 1974.
In that year, I had just graduated from University and was back
home to conquer the world. I
could not have predicted any of the things that have happened to me
since then except that I knew that as long there was life, I wanted my
life directed in a certain way and place, and I have accomplished many
of my goals. It has been a
remarkable and extraordinary journey for me personally and I thank all
of allowed this incredible journey to be possible.
All of us here are the elite of the society.
We are successful people. I
enjoy being around aggressive, innovative and successful people.
I am in my element. We
are the ones leading the society, making the decisions, moving the
country along. You who are
obtaining the certificates and those who are being honoured here tonight
play an important role in moving the country along.
On behalf of the Prime Minister, I want to thank you for all that
you do for yourselves, you families and your country, and pray that
almighty God will continue to bless you.
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