The Tribune

By SANCHESKA DORSETT

Tribune Staff Reporter

sdorsett@tribunemedia.net

TOURISM Minister Dionisio D’Aguilar said yesterday there will be “one or two” more layoffs at the Ministry of Tourism in the near future, but he does not expect it to be anything significant, as he defended recent cost-cutting measures.

Speaking with reporters on the sidelines of an orientation exercise for parliamentarians at Baha Mar, Mr D’Aguilar said while he understands that “people need jobs” the government cannot continue to hire persons that are not needed.

Last week, 11 persons from the Ministry of Tourism’s Grand Bahama office were made redundant.

In July, 12 persons were recalled to Nassau after the ministry amalgamated its Washington, DC and Los Angeles offices with New York and Houston.

Mr D’Aguilar had previously said that move would save around $1 million a year.

Speaking of recent layoffs, he said on Wednesday: “What we did in the restructuring exercise was look at those people, these were only people who were employed within 20 days of the general election and there were 22 people who were employed within 20 to 30 days of the general election. And we said, can we absorb them or is it more judicious to apply the funds, and it was going to cost the treasury $750,000 to pay these people, was it more judicious to claw back that money and reallocate to marketing the destination, trying to grow our overall foreign visitors to the country.”

When asked if this was the end of layoffs in his ministry, Mr D’Aguilar said: “I am sure there are one or two more to go but nothing terribly significant.

“But we are very, very, very mindful of the fact, and I don’t want to come across as too severe, but we are mindful of the fact that people need jobs but we also must be mindful of the fact that the core mission of the Ministry of Tourism is to grow the overall visitor count or the total number of stopover visitors to our country and therefore they bring significant spend to the country and create economic opportunities. You don’t grow employment by the government hiring more people, you want the private sector to grow and thereby hire more people, that’s the route you need to take.”

Mr D’Aguilar said his main focus is on increasing stop over business, which “has not improved in 20 years.”

In an earlier interview with Tribune Business, Mr D’Aguilar warned that there will be “some casualties” and Bahamians will have to suffer “some pain before gain” as the Minnis administration tries to combat the growing fiscal crisis.

He said the government has no choice but to “right size the ship” following the Christie administration’s “orgy of spending” prior to the May 10 general election.

According to Mr D’Aguilar, there were 260 employees when former Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe assumed office in 2012 and 403 when he left.

Mr Wilchcombe has defended his decision to increase the size of the ministry’s staff by 55 per cent under his tenure. He told Tribune Business earlier this week he was proud of the fact he had created opportunities for Bahamian professionals to be employed within his department, a move he said that was done within the ministry’s budgetary constraints.