By Morgan Adderley

Tribune Staff Reporter

madderley@tribunemedia.net

DEPUTY Prime Minister K Peter Turnquest is defending the newly passed Immigration Amendment Bill 2019 against backlash, surmising there is a “misunderstanding” of the Bill’s intentions and insisting that it does not provide for the free movement of people or labour.

Instead, Mr Turnquest, who is also the Minister of Finance, said the Bill makes it “convenient and efficient” for high level investors and executives to visit their institutions that are operating in the Bahamas.

He also maintained Immigration has the right to admit or reject anyone who comes to the Bahamas. He also insisted that there was consultation, and while he could not provide specifics, he noted the Minnis Administration certainly “didn’t dream this up overnight”.

Mr Turnquest made these remarks on Friday while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

These comments came one day after the Bahamas Bar Association (BBA) rejected one of two amendments to the Immigration Act that provides for work visa exemptions to visitors for a myriad of professional and commercial purposes.

Such persons would be allowed to enter the country in 14-day intervals for attending a conference or seminar as a participant, excluding organisers of the event; attending a trade show or summit, excluding organisers, or working as a non-executive director of a business being carried out in The Bahamas among other things.

BBA President Khalil Parker said the bill promoted the Bahamas as “open for business”.

When asked to respond to this pushback, Mr Turnquest told reporters: "Well, I think there’s a misunderstanding of what this bill is trying to accomplish.

"The fact of the matter is, what we’re looking at is attracting to the Bahamas professionals and investors who are involved in industries that are not represented in the Bahamas or that are underrepresented in the Bahamas,” he continued. "These are specialty firms. So if you look at the list of professionals that are listed in this bill and you look at the reference to the Commercial Enterprise Bill, which sets out the kinds of industries that we’re interested in attracting to the Bahamas, you will recognize very quickly that this is relatively narrowly defined.

"There are controls in the legislation to ensure that there is not any runaway free access to the Bahamian market for outside foreigners to come in and to conduct business without a properly vetted work permit.”

Mr Turnquest added the bill is aimed at high level technical people and executives of corporations that may be operating in the Bahamas who wish to visit their local companies. He said this allows them to conduct business “easily and unfettered”.

"Again, working on this ease of business, working on efficiency to ensure that we make the Bahamas as attractive (an) investment destination as we possibly can. This is not the free movement of people or free movement of labour. And any characterization to that extent is absolutely erroneous and mischievous.

"Again, immigration retains control of the borders of the Bahamas and they have the right to admit or to reject any person that comes to the Bahamas,” the deputy prime minister continued.

"Now all this is trying to do is to make it convenient and efficient to allow those persons coming to visit their installations for meetings and for information-gathering or whatever, to be able to do that without being harassed. And (Immigration) Minister (Brent) Symonette would have stated in Parliament some very concrete and embarrassing situations that happened with top level executives of investment companies that are in the Bahamas, some who are going to be doing some big things in the Bahamas; some where we, because of the actions at the border, have deterred some investments in the Bahamas.

"And so we want to see if we can remove that mischief from the system, make it easy for these desired investors to come and move freely to visit their own investment.”

Among his criticisms, Mr Parker noted the BBA had not been consulted prior to the amendment’s passage, adding if it had been it would have highlighted the effective curtailment of immigration officers on the frontline to carry out meaningful discretion.

When asked to respond to critiques that there was a lack of consultation, Mr Turnquest insisted there was consultation.

"Again, I can’t speak to that, particularly the Bar or any particular grouping,” he said. "But I can say that there was consultation. And I believe Dame Allen has spoken to this. So again, I can’t say who they've spoken to but certainly we didn’t dream this up overnight. There was consultation on the bill."