The Tribune

“IF the complaints continue,” Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell told the House yesterday, “we have made it clear to industry in Grand Bahama that we will begin to refuse all requests for work permits cold turkey, unless there is a clear understanding of the need for policies to hire and train Bahamians.”

These words — spoken by Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell in the House of Assembly Monday — echoed those of the Bahamas’ first prime minister, the late Sir Lynden Pindling.

The occasion then was the opening of the BORCO refinery in Freeport on July 26, 1969. To the assembled businessmen, Sir Lynden warned: “In this city, where, regrettably, almost anything goes, where, promisingly, some economic opportunities have come to Bahamians, Bahamians are nevertheless still the victims of an unbending social order, which, if it now refuses to bend, must be broken.” This speech will go down in Bahamian history as the “bend or break” speech — the speech that broke Freeport.

Investment fled. Freeport never recovered. In Freeport today, there is little investment left to flee, but threats like Mr Mitchell’s would certainly dash any thoughts an investor might have had to sample those so-called opportunities that promoters claim the Bahamas offers.

There are many observations that we could make on the Mitchell speech in the House on Monday. His words dragged the country back to the Pindling days and headed it down the road to mediocrity. However, we shall leave those observations for another time.

We have always believed in the Bahamianisation policy — but only if administered wisely and fairly. It is only natural that Bahamians should be the first to have the top jobs in their own country, provided they have the skills and willingness to work and excel. At The Tribune, we only allow a person to sit in a chair if he fits. If he doesn’t fit, he doesn’t sit.

However, Pindling used immigration as a political tool to victimise those who did not toe the party line, and to reward those who did. There was no pretence at fairness in those years. And, of course, the outspoken Tribune — the same Tribune that Fred Mitchell, when wandering in the political wilderness, once said “that when members and supporters of the PLP get into trouble, they run to The Tribune. The Tribune is seen by many Bahamians as a last resort when nothing else seems to work or no one seems willing to help” – yes, it was that same Tribune that was the brunt of Immigration victimisation throughout the PLP years.

And on Monday, we were back in an oh, so, familiar spot — the spotlight of an ill-informed immigration policy was on us.

“One of the newspapers continues to ask for work permits to manage their newspaper,” Mr Mitchell told the House. Of course, he did not call The Tribune’s name, but the reference was to The Tribune. “There is no question,” he continued, “in the minds of the board that this paper can be run by Bahamians.” What arrogant ignorance. Which member of the Board we wonder — Mr Mitchell included who fancies himself as a journalist – knows anything about the operation of a newspaper? How many, for example, know what something as simple as an “inverted pyramid” is in our profession? It’s one of the ABCs of journalism learned at the ground floor level. No member of this Board knows what any of the many newspaper jobs entail and yet they have formed an ill-informed opinion that a Bahamian can be found to manage them.

“This is a case,” Mr Mitchell continued, “where on appeal we have asked that an understudy be identified.” However, he did not ask that an understudy be identified, he made it clear that the employment of an understudy was one of the conditions on which a work permit would be granted. We were instructed that this understudy was to sit at the side of a man with 23 years’ experience in all facets of the newspaper industry, and learn enough to replace him. At the end of the month, this trainee was to report to the Immigration Department to be interviewed. Without this condition, it was clear that the permit would not be granted. So, it is not true for Mr Mitchell to say that The Tribune was “asked”, no, The Tribune was put in an either or situation. However, we have refused to allow Immigration to cross the line and meddle in the operation of a privately owned organisation. (See our letter of Feb 22 in reply to theirs of Feb 13).

To make this demand illustrates the ignorance of each and every member of that Board as to how a journalist is trained and how long it takes to acquire the skills that this senior newspaper man, Stephen Hunt, has. Mr Hunt, a Northern Irishman, is vital to our operation because, although we have senior Bahamian editors, they do not have the extra skills that he has — nor are they interested in acquiring them.

In fact, in the very week that we received the letter from Immigration, a young Bahamian was being interviewed to join the profession at the bottom of the ladder to start the climb through all the many stages to eventually reach the top. Until the cub reporter gets to that level and expresses a desire to continue on to learn graphic design, he/she would not qualify to understudy Mr Hunt. However, this does not mean that Mr Hunt does not try to help the juniors – as a matter of fact all of our staff try to help each other — but if the Bahamians are interested in being writers, and editors only – without the extra skills needed for the particular job for which we need Mr Hunt — then they will never be ready to replace him.

The two senior editors who are at the level to be trained for this job, are not interested in acquiring the extra skills. But, suppose they were. To move any one of these Bahamian editors to the work that Mr Hunt is now doing would mean that an important vacancy is left in the newsroom that has to be filled by another Bahamian editor. Among our staff of journalists, there is no one who has yet reached the stage to fill any empty editorial chair. This means that the business has to stop growing to wait for one or two of the juniors to catch up. And when a business stops expanding, further employment also stops — as it did at The Tribune during the Pindling years. Therefore, with the removal of any one of our three specially skilled foreign editors, the business is crippled and young Bahamian journalists suffer.

In our December 15, 2012, letter to Immigration, we pointed out what government had said was its position on the issuance of work permits. It claimed that it has no intention of “crippling the business community”. It also said that “necessary work permits for key personnel will be granted” when Bahamians cannot be found with the necessary skills. This is a reasonable position.

In the case of Mr Hunt, The Tribune advertised — got no replies. It wrote to the Labour Board, which said that “no Bahamians were registered for this position at this time”.

Because no Bahamians could be found for this key position an application was made for the renewal of Mr Hunt’s permit. It was turned down. We appealed. On appeal, the permit was granted on the condition that we hired a Bahamian for training, and at the end of the month that person was to be interviewed by Immigration. We said we would pay the $9,000 fee for the permit, but we would not do the impossible — we would not employ an understudy for government to interview at the end of a month. After all this is our business, not government’s. As for government, it has never been a help, but rather – as far as The Tribune is concerned – an unnecessary hindrance.

Therefore, having done all that was required of us, the permit was still denied — unless, of course, we consented to allow them to join us in the approval of our staff.

The only conclusion we can come to is that the PLP are back to their old tricks of political interference in an attempt to bring The Tribune to heel. They have never been able to do it in the past. They are fooling themselves if they think they can do it now.

On this page today, Tribune News Editor Paco Nunez tells of his experience with Immigration when we left for Europe for a short time and some unauthorised person at Immigration tried to move in to cause trouble. Although the PLP was not the government at the time, they were trying to get our Managing Editor John Marquis out of the country. The person who called Mr Nunez was obviously a PLP operative in the Immigration department, who presumed too much.

What must be pointed out is that The Tribune has never applied to Immigration for a foreign reporter. We prefer to find literate and enthusiastic Bahamians and train them to climb the professional ladder. However, we still cannot get Bahamians with all of Mr Hunt’s skills. And so under government’s own definition he is an essential staff member who The Tribune has been denied — we can only presume for political reasons.

The Tribune expected this behaviour from a PLP government and so we have been planning for a long time to face this day — that day is here and now and at last technology is on our side.

(The letters between The Tribune and Immigration on this matter are published on this page for our readers to come to their own conclusions).