To move the Bahamas’ economy forward, engaging Bahamians at the ground level in their particular skill-sets is important to growth, according to former Bahamian Ambassador to China, Andy Gomez.
Speaking on Love 97’s daily talk show Issues of the Day, Mr. Gomez said that Bahamians need to be more proactive and that the [government] must believe in Bahamians.
“We have to believe in Bahamians, quite frankly, The Bahamas does not promote Bahamians.
“There is a lot of chatter from time to time, because someone who is an expert in a certain area, [such as] banking, they need to discuss banking and maybe cross over [the same] kinds of industry. You don’t need a guy who is chemical engineer talking about banking and how to advance banking because he doesn’t have that skill set.
“You need people who are experts in certain areas. You need them to come to the table and talk about how they can make those particular industries more efficient and more productive for Bahamians in general,” Mr. Gomez said.
Speaking on the topic of how to stimulate the economy, Mr. Gomez made several references to his appointment as Ambassador and his stay in China.
He noted that in order for a country to have economic boom, they must allow for a playing field of both citizens and foreign investors.
“In order for you to build a country successfully, you have to believe in the people first of all and then you have to create a playing field where Bahamians can excel.
“Sometimes we think it’s all for Bahamians, but we will need some foreigners to assist us and that’s the way we will have to build the country and the government,” he said.
Sharing his wealth of knowledge, Mr. Gomez said that government needs to engage Bahamians through dialogue to know what can be done to boost the economy.
“There’s very little happening, but a bit of advice to the government: I think it needs to start with the Bahamian people.
“I think the government needs to start at the point of engaging Bahamians at the ground level across the country to find out what it is that they want,” he said.
“I think that there needs to be a dialogue across the Bahamas in term of what Bahamians want and listen to people, engage Bahamian business people,” Mr. Gomez said.
Mr. Gomez also stated that the government is challenged because of resources and therefore the private sector must also be readily available.
“All governments because of limited resources are going to be stressed in terms of what to do because the resources are not there.
“So, the business community has got to step up to the plate. But when the business community steps up to the plate, we still got to be right in term of the facilitating good business or expedient business,” Mr. Gomez said.
Mr. Gomez concluded that not only should the government engage Bahamians, but also allow Bahamians to invest in the country with a voice.
“Once Bahamians have a vested interest in the direction the country is going, they’re going to buy into it, but [if] you are just going to ram it down their throat, it’s not going to happen.
