ORG: Lots of opportunities in existing governance legislation nation can benefit from

Organization for Responsible Governance (ORG) Executive Director Matthew Aubry told Guardian Business that there are a lot of opportunities in existing governance legislation that the country can benefit from, notwithstanding the latest US Department of State’s recently released 2025 Bahamas Investment Climate Statement for the country. He said: “The bottom line on the US investment report is it reiterates a lot of things that ORG has been talking about for a while. There are a lot of opportunities to be leveraged in the existing legislation related to anti-corruption, including the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the ombudsman, the independent committee for investigation, the protected disclosures, and bringing these in full effect with appropriate funding.” He added that leveraging what is already in the current legislation can “unleash a number of positive opportunities.” The US State Department’s Bahamas Investment Climate Statement has raised concerns about corruption and stalled transparency laws in The Bahamas. The report said: “Despite government efforts to improve transparency and efficiency, investors face challenges such as a lack of clearly defined investment procedures, delays in resolving legal disputes, and incomplete implementation of anti-corruption reforms.” Aubry said: At our anti-corruption conference in 2023 we had all the sectors represented, and those sectors spoke to the varying activities that are happening. The private sector is spending lots of money on codes of ethics and training of staff. The government has different initiatives focused on integrity, including digital governance and work in the financial services center. Civil society groups like ours and the Caribbean Women in Leadership (CIWIL) are working to raise community level engagement, so that our political systems are less vulnerable to corruption and patronage. However, most of these exist in silos, and we are not connecting or leveraging them to see the full benefit of this potential framework, or have drafted a framework that could be utilized”. Aubry continued: “The US investment climate report also spoke to a number of key opportunities and presents an overall positive picture. That’s important, and you see how the leverage of laws and policies that connect tourism and economic development have created value. Prioritizing the laws around transparency, accountability, and anti-corruption can have a similar impact for all both economically and socially. “ORG is currently in the middle of supporting an access to information week, tied into a universal access to information day, to remind Bahamians that much can come from furthering transparency, and that they have the capacity to reach out to their elected officials and call for these pieces to be part of a legislative and national priority. “Transparency accountability is something that we all have a mutual responsibility for, and the absence of it limits all sectors in their movement forward towards national development.”