WASHINGTON, DC -- Bahamas Ambassador to the United States Cornelius A Smith was a featured guest on the Washington, DC, radio program “Let’s Get It On” Thursday evening.  

He talked about how The Bahamas was responding to changes in the international financial regulatory regime, and how the Caribbean ‘Diaspora’ in the DC area was responding to the crisis in Haiti. 

The show, hosted by Warren Powell and sponsored by the National Alliance of Postal and Federal Employees, aired online and over a local AM radio station. The program is broadcast throughout the US and in seven countries around the world. 

On Financial Services 

On the question of how the recent focus of US and other world authorities on offshore financial jurisdictions has affected the financial services industry in The Bahamas, Ambassador Smith pointed out that every offshore financial services centre has been affected “one way or the other”. 

“The Bahamas has certainly been affected, but not to that great an extent,” Mr Smith said. “The Bahamas has been involved in the financial services sector since the mid-1950s, so we are a very matured jurisdiction. 

“We have always prided ourselves that we were not – and we still are not – a tax haven. 

He noted the retooling of the regulatory regime overseeing the financial services sector of the economy of The Bahamas in 2000, in response to the implementation of more stringent standards by countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). 

“Once we met those standards,” Mr Smith said, “one of the first countries we signed a Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) with was the United States.” 

The ambassador stressed the positive working relationship between the regulatory agencies of the US and The Bahamas, but pointed out that relatively recently, the OECD countries – including the US – had once again “changed the rules”. 

“They have moved the goalpost,” he said. 

Mr Smith explained that the OECD now requires that in addition to meeting the previous standard, countries must now also sign TIEAs with 12 other countries. He said that The Bahamas would have signed 17 TIEAs by the March 30 deadline. 

“So we will meet the standard, and exceed the standard, but one of the things that I am concerned about is that we just want a level playing field – that every country ought to meet the same standard. What you require of us, you are to require of everybody else.” 

On Caribbean ‘Diaspora’ 

Mr Smith noted that Caribbean nationals have, since the 1940s, migrated in large numbers to the US. In fact, he quipped that there might be as many Caribbean nationals living in the US as there are living in the Caribbean.  

The reasons for this migration, he said, include labour – as during “the Contract,” for example, when thousands of Caribbean nationals migrated to the US as labourers in the agricultural sector – coupled with education and other motivators. 

Mr Smith said the entire region was concerned about the catastrophic earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands and displaced more than a million in Haiti on January 12, 2010.  

In response to the tremendous need, many people of Caribbean heritage intended to meet during March 2010 to find ways to help, in terms of skills that may be needed, funds that could be raised, and a network to ensure that both the skills and the funds reach the need. 

“It provides a real opportunity for us to realize how interconnected we are,” he said, “and how we are all our brothers’ keeper.”