I often find myself disagreeing with public policy primarily because once agencies are implemented to "solve" a problem they never go away if they do not solve the problem they were created to deal with. Generally, they just keep getting larger.

Take the Bahamas Development Bank. Their mission is "To finance economically viable small and medium enterprises in a sustainable manner and to foster economic expansion and diversification throughout The Bahamas." (By the way, the last financials posted on their web site are from 2011).

It appears that it was agreed that it really wasn't working so funds were being loaned to entrepreneurs only to never be repaid if the speculative venture failed.

So the taxpayer ended up owing millions upon millions that will never be repaid.

The PLP Government then sought to improve upon these results and started a venture fund.

These initiatives were launched, we must believe, with the best of intentions, but so far have ended up as failures and no detailed reports have been made available to the taxpayer.

Now the FNM have launched the Access Accelerator Small Business Development Centre in conjunction with local banks. In essence the money is lent by chartered banks with a government guarantee.

Again we must assume this is done with the best of intentions but when I suggested it was easy to give away tax dollars in this manner I was accused of being cold hearted and dogmatic.

This begs another question. Are the various agencies set up over the years still staffed and functioning at taxpayer expense?

While my position is not to take anything away from the young entrepreneurs and their ideas that I admire, this is little more than window dressing of the same Government programme.

We're left hoping that honest data on the success and/or failure of those entrepreneurs provided with Government backed funding succeed with details of the cost to taxpayers.

Another pertinent question that is left unanswered is how government, based on politics, picks winning entrepreneurs or those taxpayers that don't get assistance? Developing public policies to pick winners and losers is not a function of government.

I'm always left with this question: Is there a way to have private venture funds do these things rather than a government that is financially strapped and riddled with failing public institutions that require their daily attention?