The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

If I believed for a second that Hubert Ingraham honestly did not know better and really thought that years of complaints of Bahamian fishermen about foreign spousal permit holders in the industry (a phenomenon addressed in the new Fisheries Act) were driven by mere “discrimination”, then maybe I could see some point in his letter appearing in both dailies on the 21st December. But Mr Ingraham knows better.

The reality is that the practice of foreign fishermen (from two specific countries, which happen to be fished out of the very products that abound in our waters) marrying Bahamian women and immediately entering the local industry is so widespread that it has become a threat both to the livelihoods of Bahamian fishermen and the sustainability of our marine resources.

Bahamian fishermen, some of whom accept the need for Dominican or Honduran workers in the industry, find themselves facing them not as employees, but as owners, often with a far less principled approach to environmental issues.

By stealth, another industry intended for Bahamians succumbs to foreign ownership.

There is a process whereby people who marry Bahamians can become Bahamian citizens, at which point, nobody can tell them they can’t do anything that is reserved for Bahamians. But spousal permit holders are not in that category and it is right that they are treated differently.

Sham marriages are easy to arrange and hard to prove. It would make a mockery of any attempt to keep any business activity meaningfully reserved for Bahamians if a spousal permit were all that was needed to skirt the policy.

For years, fishermen have complained and yet successive governments, including Ingraham’s own, have done little or nothing to address the situation. Meanwhile they take action at the drop of a hat when foreign interests tell them to stop Bahamians eating turtles (a traditional food, lightly harvested) or to place vast areas of the country off limits to Bahamian fishermen. No questions asked and no mention of the “d” word.

What a better place this country would be if Mr Ingraham and his successors had governed with this simple ethic in mind: Discrimination in favour of Bahamians is no discrimination at all – It is simple accountability to those who elected you.

ANDREW ALLEN

Nassau,

December 21, 2020.