From marked increases in Social Service allocations to tax eliminations on food items, to pay raises for public officers and teachers to tax suspensions on fuel imports for the Bahamas Electricity Corporation, the Bahamas government’s 2008/2009 budget is tilted toward providing relief and assistance to low income Bahamians and those continuing to be adversely affected by the rising cost of living in the country.


Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Hubert Ingraham announced the government’s plans to provide relief to Bahamians during the 2008/2009 Budget Communication delivered to parliament Wednesday.


“This budget has been crafted to take into account the international economic turbulence and uncertainty impacting so harshly on our own people,” Ingraham said.

“In particular, this budget embraces my government’s social philosophy, its commitment and its determination to cushion the harshness of the impact of the international turbulence upon our citizens, most particularly low income families who invariably are impacted first and most acutely,” he added.


Along with its budgetary increase to the Department of Social Services in the last fiscal year, the government over a two-year period has increased assistance to the poor by $13 million.


When the government came to office just over a year ago, the allocation for the Department of Social Services was $26.4 million. In the 2007/08 budget, it increased that department’s budget allocation to $31.8 million, an increase of $5.4 million or 20.5%. Some $3 million of the department’s budget was specifically earmarked for poverty alleviation.

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