The Tribune

THERE has been a lot of noise lately over work permits – and the prospect of denying permits to businesses if they don’t have an understudy being trained. Well, listen carefully, here comes the sound of the backtrack.

Last month, Labour Director John Pinder talked of revoking permits over non-compliance. He said: “We will now make it mandatory for the employer who is applying for a labour certificate to have understudies named.”

Now? Not so much. Yesterday, Mr Pinder said the situation regarding understudies was “not that great of an issue”. Odd that something which isn’t a great issue ended up being part of a speech by the prime minister the day before. It also brought concerns from the chamber of commerce, but Mr Pinder said he thinks the chamber had the wrong impression.

“They got the impression that I as Director of Labour was trying to suggest that every work permit is supposed to have an understudy. That’s not the case.”

Instead, he says, it’s only for those posts where the applicant fills in the section that asks if you have an understudy.

Mr Pinder also says that he thinks that the unemployment rate can be cut by reducing the number of work permits given out. He says more than 40,000 work permits have been granted and wants to see that halved. However, he also says that only around ten percent of work permits are for businesses – or around 4,000 permits. Not all of those will have committed to an understudy in the application. Even if every one had such a commitment, a total of 4,000 work permits isn’t going to make much of a dent if he’s wanting to halve the number of work permits, so what he’s really needing to do is focus on the number of individual permits. Those are most often given out for handymen, gardeners and so on – jobs on low pay that are often taken on by Haitians rather than Bahamians.

So all that noise about cracking down on employers? Just that, noise. Now if an employer has committed to training up an individual, by all means hold them to their promises – but it seems unlikely these are the targets of the PM’s wrath this week, talking of “investors, bankers, etc” who “in six years they are still here, eight years they are still here, nine years they are planning for residency, displacing Bahamians”.

So what really is the solution to halve that total of 40,000 applications? What is the government planning to do over individual applications? The employers in those cases are Bahamians, maybe hiring someone to help look after their home, or work on a project – so it ought to be made clear if that’s going to be made more difficult, or more expensive.

What’s the real plan? Because cracking down on a fraction of applicants who have named an understudy isn’t going to make the numbers work.

If America sneezes...

The ongoing story of the coronavirus outbreak is a matter of global concern. There have been deaths in China, South Korea, Italy and Japan, mostly in China and a total of more than 2,700 worldwide. The World Health Organisation estimates the fatality rate at around two percent – though that is an early forecast and could as easily go down as up.

Thankfully, there have been no cases here in The Bahamas so far, though a number of people have been quarantined after travelling in China to ensure they did not carry the virus.

The question comes though, what if the virus spreads throughout the US?

The Center for Disease Control there yesterday warned of that danger. There have been eight cases in California so far, two in Illinois and one each in Massachusetts, Arizona, Wisconsin and Washington. Dr Nancy Messonnier, of the CDC, said “it’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness”. Even as senior figures in President Donald Trump’s administration tried to play down the risk, the agency sent out a tweet last night warning that Americans should think about getting ready.

What does that mean for us here? Our economy’s lifeblood depends on tourism, with US tourists forming the largest percentage of our visitors by far. We face two risks from the virus – visitors bringing it here and our having to deal with it and the economic crash that might come if people in the US decide against travel and stay at home. Danger if visitors come, danger if they don’t.

The US government has just requested an extra $2.5bn in funding to combat the coronavirus. Our government should be firmly making its own plans for how to deal with an outbreak here – and what it might cost to fight it.

We should not be too sensational about the virus at this stage – but we should absolutely be taking it seriously.

The old saying goes that when America sneezes, The Bahamas catches a cold. Well, what happens when America catches this virus? We absolutely need to come up with some answers beforehand, rather than try to react too late. We hope minds are focused in government.