By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

IMMIGRATION Minister Elsworth Johnson has defended the appointment of a former police officer to assistant director at the Department of Immigration, saying officials wanted to bring in someone not connected to the agency who had the expertise to help crack down on internal illegal operations.

He also insisted the move was not meant “to slight” anyone.

This comes after the Bahamas Customs, Immigration and Allied Workers Union filed a trade dispute over the issue. The new appointee is Stuart Curtis.

The union is upset that the appointment came from outside the organisation and that no immigration officers had been tapped for the position.

Speaking on the matter to reporters yesterday, Mr Johnson said there have been too many instances where people have entered the country without proper authorisation and legal documentation, among other irregularities at the department.

“I can tell you of files that have been missing, people who’ve entered The Bahamas and documents aren’t stamped, people who’ve served time in other countries, deported from The Bahamas and miraculously end back up into this country,” he said.

“And so, the conventional wisdom in terms of complaints and corruption is that the institution – that is to conduct (the complaints) – is to be external to the organisation. When I was in a different place before coming into government, I always said I thought the complaints and corruption section should be external and so the gentleman that we’ve brought in is very efficient.”

He added: “I’m not saying this to denigrate anybody under the department because they’re going to leave the department and he has the respect of the law enforcement agencies here and our foreign counterparts that he’s been working with.”

He also said: “We have to be efficient, and you have to do the business of the Bahamian people. The hiring of Mr Stuart was not to slight anybody. I think it went a distance in accordance with the secret shopper programme – to bring somebody in who can take that and who doesn’t know anybody and he can take the files and he can deal with them.

“I am very concerned when people come into The Bahamas and their documents aren’t stamped. I’m very concerned when I meet hundreds if not thousands of files that are not scanned in and I know that we are finding Bahamians who are married and don’t know that they are married.

“Bahamians who don’t know that they have people in their employment.”

He said as staff comb through the system to digitise records it is becoming clear that “we’re going to have to revoke certain designations” that were given to people.

According to the union president, Sloane Smith, the last promotional exercise at the agency was done in 2015 but was retroactive to 2013.

Yesterday, Mr Johnson said officials are currently in the process of promoting several more people to high-ranking positions at the agency.

“That process is almost completed and unofficially I’ve told the president of the union where that is,” he said. “We’re in the process of appointing two deputy directors, a number of assistant directors. There are persons who’ve gone home but before that can be done, there’s some young officers who have been trainee officers for years.

“There’s some young officers who don’t have their confirmation letters and they’ve been approaching me on the sidelines to say listen, ‘we’re entitled to be promoted’. . .And, so just like senior officers want to be promoted, the junior officers want to be promoted and there are a number of things that we’ve done in the agency to respond to the community so that the level of efficiency that we have in the agency can be increased.”

He added the organisation is one that believes in succession, saying workers can expect to see new changes very soon.

“Succession is occurring. Very shortly, some persons would even supersede some people at the department and so we’re going to send out supersession letters for persons who would take charge of that organisation,” he said.