WEDNESDAY MORNING UPDATE: Ministry of Labour & Immigration responds to questions raised by Leader of Opposition

By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

Tribune Staff Reporter

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell said he told Immigration Minister Keith Bell not to respond to recent immigration controversies because it would not be beneficial to do so.

He also suggested someone at the Department of Immigration –– “a well-known ingrate who was disciplined before” –– is behind recent leaks about Mr Bell’s actions.

His comments came after the Office of the Prime Minister said it is examining claims about Mr Bell’s actions and will provide a detailed response.

The Free National Movement has claimed Mr Bell superseded the authority of senior immigration officials many times.

In one case, it is claimed, he allowed 65 Chinese nationals at the British Colonial Hotel to be released despite irregularities. FNM leader Michael Pintard also claimed Mr Bell approved a work permit for someone on a restricted list a day after the person was deported for overstaying.

 “We put every PLP candidate or would-be candidate through a module to teach folks how to be public figures,” Mr Mitchell said in a voice note. “One lesson that I shared with folk is that you ought to know how to keep your own counsel, know when to hold them, how when to fold them, know when to walk away and know when to run.

 “I shared in the lectures a number of experiences that I had that taught me there could be no rational discussion by a minister on immigration in this country. The country is hopelessly split on the issue, with one side accusing the next of being traitors, and so no minister can put a point with a logical argument within this matter.

 “So you had now this recent issue of the non-nationals interdicted on a worksite in Nassau which happens every day the Lord sends when there are rational actors on the scene. The leader of opposition Michael Pintard knows it, the former prime minister Hubert Minnis knows it and yet they would pretend that what transpired is somehow some big, unforgivable faux pas. It is made worse by the fact that there is no buffer between the decision-maker and the event.

 “The rules, the conventions, the practices are the best defence. They’re neutral, they’re normative, and they work. Yesterday, the chief of the coalition, his idiots was at it again, claiming he had documents to show something amiss at the Department of Immigration. I won’t waste my time on it. You can bet your bottom dollar it’s nonsense generated by a well-known ingrate at immigration who was disciplined before for acting ultra vires of rules of the department.

 “But you know the coalition of idiots, The Tribune, anything that they put down would stand still for nonsense to be written on it. The safest choice for the PLP in all circumstances is something I said to the accused MP, keep your counsel, keep your head down, do your work, you can’t straighten out any bet with some things and the folk who oppose us are not interested in the truth. They’re bound to duty to cause confusion so let’s not fall into that trap.”

 Responding to Mr Mitchell yesterday, Mr Pintard said some PLP members do not believe in accountability. 

 “Some members of the Progressive Liberal Party do not believe that they have an obligation to give an account of their stewardship of the work that they’re doing supposedly on behalf of the country to the Bahamian people and such a statement is further evidence of this,” he said.

 “Minister Bell has an obligation to answer a wide range of questions put to him and accusations made against him by members of the public service, in whose job he has been consistently interfering, as well as members of the media and the opposition.”