The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Landscaping Association’s (BLA) chairman says the Government should not bar only new work permit applications for Haitians as there are multiple other nationalities holding jobs Bahamians can do.

Conray Rolle told Tribune Business he has a “problem” with the Immigration Department only singling out Haitians after it was announced on Friday that all new work permit applications involving nationals from that country will not be processed for an indefinite period.

The halt to all new Haitian work permit applications, which was unveiled on Friday, was presented as a response to the growing unrest and instability in The Bahamas’ southern neighbour. Keith Bell, minister of labour and Immigration, and his officials said they acted because it was impossible to verify whether police certificates being presented on behalf of Haitian applicants were genuine documents due to the breakdown of law and order in Haiti.

All new work permit applicants, regardless of nationality, have to produce a police certificate from their home country as evidence they have no criminal record before they arrive in The Bahamas. Meanwhile, Mr Bell said all work permit applications presently moving through the system for Haitian workers, as well as renewals, will be subject to extra scrutiny and review.

Several thousand work permits and renewals are issued annually for Haitian workers, who are typically employed in areas and industries such as gardening, landscaping, housekeepers/maids, and construction. “I get it. I support the notion of reducing the amount of work permits that we’re giving foreigners, whether they’re Haitians or whatever, but don’t make it specific to Haitians,” Mr Rolle argued.

“There is an uprising in Haiti, and we can understand that, but then in the spirit of fairness to the industry you have to look at this from a holistic standpoint. There are people that are having issues in Panama, and you have all these Mexicans that are coming in, and you have all these other foreigners that are coming into the different countries that also making up the numbers. So you’ve got to look at it from that point, as well.”

Mr Rolle added: “While I support some measure of control, we can’t all of a sudden now go back to what we issued so far and start pulling them back. Let’s see instead how much we can control going forward. We have to look at it from other countries as well. You have other contractors that are hiring all kinds of different nationals. Now you see this huge influx of Colombians and Mexicans, and that’s huge.

“You start saying to the landscapers ‘we will not allow you to bring in any more Haitians’, yet you have the construction industry bringing in Mexicans to do drywall and tile. It leaves a lot of questions left to be answered.”

Leonard Sands, the Bahamian Contractors Association (BCA) president, has said that if policies regarding Haitian labour become stricter to the point where it chokes off the supply of such workers then a lot of projects in The Bahamas would come to a complete stop.

Mr Rolle voiced a similar view, and encouraged the various training institutes in the country to “double up” on the training exercises for Bahamians. “This is the only way we can solve this problem holistically, is if we train Bahamians to do the jobs that Haitians are now doing,” he said.