‘Ease immigration restrictions to help businesses’

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Chamber of Commerce is urging the government to ease immigration policy restrictions so private sector businesses can efficiently secure the services of foreign talent.

Chamber CEO Edison Sumners said the Chamber has offered to help the Immigration Department to improve its record keeping and application processing capacities, noting that improved services would end much of the concerns the private sector has about the “new” immigration policies.

Mr Sumner and chamber chairman Gowen Bowe stressed that they support efforts to empower Bahamians and to fix this country’s illegal immigration issues.

However, business people have expressed concerns about the challenges the policies are having on their ability to secure foreign talent when local talent is unavailable, they said.

In particular, Mr Bowe said the Chamber wants the government to distinguish between skilled workers and unskilled workers who apply for permits in such a way that the application process of skilled workers can be expedited.

Otherwise, the new immigration policies have created a demand that is “clouding the system” and making it difficult for skilled foreign workers to be hired in a timely manner, he said. 

Mr Sumner lamented that local talent is not always available to perform key jobs.

“The issue with regards to importing talent and skilled people into the country should be a little more flexible,” he said after a Rotary Club of East Nassau meeting on Friday. “If companies need to import certain people to work in their organisations because the skill set those people have cannot be found locally, the government should be a little more lenient and flexible with their approach to this to allow us to bring people in.

“We fully support the Bahamianisation policies. We also support the fact that we should be developing as much talent as we can in the country. We understand that there are times when the talent and skill set that you are looking for are not available so in those cases we would like to see an easing of restrictions and the process for bringing people in for specific periods of time.

“We also want to ensure that with the immigration policy, we are able to promote education and skill sets so that it would make it more appealing for local business to be able to find local talent rather than having to search for it outside the country.

“The problem is we are not developing the skills of our people fast enough. We’re still trudging along with this D average in high school and graduating people from high school who really should not be graduating. We want to ensure we put some resources behind strengthening the academics of those coming out of schools so that it makes them more attractive to local employers.”

Mr Sumner said all of the recent immigration policy measures pose challenges to private sector business people.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a difficulty. It’s just a bit more challenging to get some things done. This is the position of the private sector and we’ve had on occasion in the past to meet with the minister of immigration and to sit with him. We’ve expressed these concerns before and what we are looking at now is to remain fully engaged in the process.

“We understand that a lot of the policies really aren’t new; they are just now being enforced. I know (the minister) is looking to enforce the law and we’re saying that yes we support Bahamianisation, but let’s also examine this on a case-by-case basis and be able to fast-track certain applications for approvals.

“We’ve proposed before to help them clean up their record-keeping system because their records are really in a bit of a shambles and we’ve proposed to provide them with a bit of assistance from the private sector side to clean up their records which would make the processing time for applications move a lot faster because part of the problem has been that you can’t get to approve the applications because they’re under files.”

Foreign Affairs and Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell said recently that the government is considering raising the fees for work permits. Mr Sumner said the chamber has no problem with this.

“There is no difficulty with the fees. The government needs to raise revenue. People need to bring them in and if you need to bring talent in you must be able to afford the fees that need to be applied. I guess it’s also another measure government is putting in place to make sure we tap into local talent as much as possible.”

He emphasised that private sector businessmen would like to hire more Bahamians. “The private sector guys would really prefer to hire local people, but if you can’t find them you got to get it from outside. It’s always eminently more expensive to bring talent in than to hire local people. You have to pay work permit fees, residency fees, travel fees and salaries and other benefits and amenities that local people are not going to be getting so if we can, we rather hire local people anyway, but sometimes we have to go outside.”

As for the government’s move to enforce the policy that mandates that children of non-nationals have a school permit, Mr Bowe said he supports this, noting that the children of skilled workers usually have a school permit.

Comments

TheMadHatter says...

Perhaps if Mr. Sumner provided a list of, say, 20 different job title / descriptions of persons his members need to attract from abroad - that would lead to beter understanding by the masses.

Are we talking about financial experts like wealth managers? Bank managers? Stock brokers? Computer programmers? Welders? Electricians with a specialty in micro circuits? Chemical engineers? Radiologists? Surgeons? Bush-whackers? Hair braiders?

Basically, what are these people that are needed that cannot be found locally.

I am not saying he is not correct - I just mean his point could be more clear if he gave a LOT of examples.

**TheMadHatter**

Posted 16 February 2015, 8:28 p.m. Suggest removal

Girly says...

Thank you.Thank you. Thank you.I was just about to type this.

Posted 16 February 2015, 9:18 p.m. Suggest removal

Cas0072 says...

I believe a recent story in the Tribune reported that they were having trouble filling middle management positions with Bahamians? I found that difficult to believe. These companies should have programs in place that will place lower level employees on track to earning middle management positions. Bringing up the D average again is unnecessary and it makes it seem like they have an agenda. I am not defending bad grades, but we all have our strengths and weaknesses. Learning on the job is quite different from sitting in a classroom and being subject to any number of variables that could negatively impact the learning process.

Posted 17 February 2015, 10:23 a.m. Suggest removal

TheMadHatter says...

And also the D average is just that - and AVERAGE - there are some students that do very well in school - and they should be lifted up with good jobs to be a beacon to others to strive to succeed.
But as it is now, in this disgusting country, it doesn't matter if you get A's or F's you still can make-up beds and sweep floors in the hotel.
**TheMadHatter**

Posted 17 February 2015, 10:46 a.m. Suggest removal

Girly says...

GOOD KIND SIR.CAN YOU PLEASE GIVE A DESCRIPTION OF THE QUALIFICATIONS THAT YOU DARE TO SAY THAT BAHAMIANS ARE NOT QUALIFIED TO FILL.GIVE ME A BREAK.

Posted 16 February 2015, 9:20 p.m. Suggest removal

TheMadHatter says...

Once again, I am very sure that there are SOME positions that there is no Bahamian qualified to fill - and it would be great to bring in such foreign talented individuals - not only to do the job, but also to take on an apprentice Bahamian and train them to obtain such expertise over a period of years. That would be fantastic and would help everyone.

However, I am sure that hair-braiding is NOT one of the fields he is discussing. He could list some of the correct fields and talents that he is talking about.

That would not only make Bahamians feel at ease that indeed these are persons that we need here to help the Bahamas grow and compete in a global market BUT
it would also give a lot of us a "heads up" on what particular skills and areas we need to start studying in order to become one of those successful persons.

**TheMadHatter**

Posted 16 February 2015, 10:47 p.m. Suggest removal

Girly says...

Exactly.

Posted 16 February 2015, 10:57 p.m. Suggest removal

Economist says...

It is not just a matter of qualifications, it is also one of work ethic.

Bahamians can work as well as anyone else if you take them out of The Bahamas. But, when we work in our own country we don't have to try because we are protected. I won't take that transfer and you can't do anything about it because immigration won't give my job to a foreigner, so you are stuck with me.

It is happening all over the place. Then we want to be managers but still be one of the boys, so finding real middle managers who are Bahamian is very difficult and you can't bring anyone in.

We need to look at how to motivate ourselves. If we won't perform give us some competition and I guarantee we will be much better, smarter and efficient. The countries GDP would go up and unemployment would come down.

Posted 16 February 2015, 11:53 p.m. Suggest removal

Economist says...

No, but spent sometime in other countries, and know that we are our own biggest enemy.

We are scared of change. If we don't get with the program, the world will kick us to the curb. If you think things are bad now, they will get worse, unless we change our attitude.

To many of us think that the world begins and ends at our borders, it doesn't.

Posted 17 February 2015, 10:10 a.m. Suggest removal

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