Comrade PM, this objective of the bill has been in play for 50 years beginning under Pindling. Wasn't AD "Mitch" Hanna and Loftus Roker, not put in as immigration ministers to damn well ensure positions long filled filled by Expat work permit holders would no longer makes native workers to have to wait in line with promises to be properly trained by Expat's?
PM, there will be no turning, It's the Peoples time clock back 50 years.
PM, you need go read Pindling's Freeport Bend or Break Speech to the foreigners of Freeport.

Pindling broke Freeport for sure---Look at it now!

Sunday roc wit doc was having his mea culpa moments now he is back to his old ways.
the long term objective will be for Bahamians to have jobs. How long is his long term.?

But he and the slay one have not moved from the fourteen day permit approval.
Doc is doing as he is told. He can not bully any one to get on board with him. He did not
get on board with VAT or the web shops or any thing else that was good for the Bahamas
or its people. Can he name one single thing that he has done for the average Bahamian
from over the hill.?? The answer is zero

Whose job, ultimately, is it to see to it that our citizenry gets the needed education and training to compete in a rapidly changing, highly competitive global economy?
I would claim it is OUR responsibility.
We are the ones who need to make the resources available to those who need them.
By mandating, and then hoping, that foreign companies train and educate our people, we have again kicked the can down the road.
This is a recipe for continued failure.
Until we get leaders who can think outside the box we will remain behind the rest of the pack.
We can't forever rely on the foreigners to come and bail us out, create investment loans, train and educate our own people.
Time to take responsibility for our own failures and take charge of our own future.

Agreed stating that the long term plan for educating the workforce is hoping their expat coworkers will show them something when they haven't done it for the past 40 years is just more of the same, visionless.

And Bahamians are to be trained after the companies bring in their own workforce? Or should permits be granted only upon successful training and positions like how Baha Mar didn't open until after the program and hires.

All of this is either unattainable or completely unnecessary. But I suspect it is just mumbo jumbo to placate diehard PLPs who have no clue.

1. Unattainable: you cannot have "strict time limits" on the training of a nanotechnology scientist. It might take years, it might take forever. No way of knowing. And who is to decide if he is trained "enough"? Some government committee? Please, let's get serious.

2. Unnecessary: companies are for profit entities. Profit is the difference between the price of product sold and the cost of producing that product. It is in the company's interest to have the best employee relative to wage paid in a position. They will always do the maths and decide accordingly. If a Bahamian performs on a par with an expat (or anywhere near that level), the company will always go for the Bahamian, because he is soooooo much cheaper. In my industry an expat costs me $200,000 (wages, rent, club fees, trips home, subsidised schooling, etc, etc, etc...) while a Bahamian costs less than half that. No legislation necessary. The market will take care of it. So much for the complete rubbish that companies prefer to hire expats. The exact opposite is true.

You cannot legislate your way to success, just as you cannot create human initiative by legislating it.
These tech industries are led by people who trained themselves, those adept at math, adept at the sciences, Hours spent on youtube U, innate curiosity. Drive! We have spent the last 50 years beating individual thought/Drive/potential out of our people and youth.
You want success? Eliminate the plantation control/deny mentality. Reverse the typical "no" stance of Government rank and file that has robbed Bahamians of their initiative. "No" is the ultimate exercise of power in those ill suited to the exercise of authority. re-educate the civil service that authority under rule of law does not equate to personal power.
Understand the real problem before attempting a fix.