The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Government was yesterday urged to enforce the requirement for Bahamians to understudy foreign workers, amid ongoing controversy over the seemingly minimal local workforce at the $250 million British Colonial Hilton expansion

Leonard Sands, the Bahamian Contractors Association’s (BCA) president said yesterday, addressing The Pointe project, said: “We’re not giving our guys a chance.”

He said such projects should not be given ‘carte blanche’ to import foreign workers, adding that while Bahamian labour laws require the ‘understudy’ arrangement, the policy seems to be rarely adhered to.

“This is one of the biggest challenges we have in our country when you look at employment,” Mr Sands said.

“When we give someone in the country a work permit, someone in our country should benefit. If no one in the Bahamas is benefiting then someone is taking advantage of my country. That is an issue for the BCA, and that’s an issue for me on a personal level.”

The Department of Immigration, in a recent statement, said the Government “is particularly sensitive to the labour components of commercial agreements as regards the limitations on foreign labour and the training and hiring of Bahamian labour”.

It added that it was reviewing The Pointe project, as critics have decried the number of Chinese workers on the project being undertaken by China Construction America (CCA). The Government had originally billed this project as creating some 200 construction jobs.

    “We have to have apprenticeships,” Mr Sands said. “You cannot give someone carte blanche labour, with these labour certificates, to work in our country, whether it’s for a year or two years, and they are not training some Bahamians.

“The Bahamians should get skills transfer; that’s the very least they could get. If they have 75 Chinese workers and 15 of them are in a management capacity, at the very least I expect to see 15 people in apprenticeship roles. I want to see apprenticeships, so that when they walk off the property there us a guy who can do their job,” the BCA chief added.

“I like what Minister Mitchell  is doing, but he needs to invite some other entities to help him. The Department of Labour should ensure that before they get a labour certificate, they identify the person who is going to be an apprentice.

“He’s on the right path, but I think he’s one man on the right path. I don’t hear the clarion call on this. We’re not giving our guys a chance.”