The Tribune

The Bahamas must change “the sad reality” that key skills and knowledge are not being passed on to local workers by expatriate work permit holders, a prominent contractor argued yesterday.

Leonard Sands, the Bahamian Contractors Association’s (BCA) president, told Tribune Business this is “the component of the work permit” process where the country falls down as it results in the repeated importation of skilled expatriates because Bahamians have not been properly trained to full these posts.

Speaking after The Pointe’s supposed 70:30 construction workforce split in favour of Bahamians reared up again, he argued that better enforcement of such Heads of Agreement terms and a stronger partnership between the Government and local construction industry when negotiating such deals was needed.

Calling for more emphasis to be placed on skills and knowledge transfer to Bahamians, Mr Sands told this newspaper: “If every time you’re going to bring in skills from outside the country you’re never going to have the skills transfer. That’s the problem. That’s the component of the work permit process we lack doing development projects.

“If we want that skills transfer, we want a 19 year-old working with a 42 year-old to do that. Because we don’t do that, we have these great projects but no skills transfer. That’s the sad reality. We have to change that.” Knowledge transfer, or the lack of it, from skilled expatriate work permit holders to Bahamians has been a frequent issue across multiple sectors not just construction.

The Pointe’s construction in downtown Nassau, adjacent to the British Colonial resort, saw repeated concerns and criticisms that Bahamian contractors and workers were being denied income and opportunities by the project’s owner, China Construction America (CCA), and its preference for a Chinese-majority workforce despite the 70: 30 worker ratio in favour of locals that was agreed with the then-Christie administration.

Mr Sands said the Government frequently lacked the data to demonstrate to international developers that Bahamian contractors and workers possess most of the skills and capacity they are seeking because the industry is not consulted on, or involved in, Heads of Agreement negotiations when such terms are discussed.

“The point can always be taken that The Bahamas, as a developing nation, does not have a skilled workforce that could deliver projects of the same scale that international companies are used to,” the BCA president said. “That can always be argued. However, I believe that when you look at what we’ve actually developed that stance turns out not to be true.”

Mr Sands said the construction workforces employed on the Gold Wynn condo project at Goodman’s Bay, as well as One Cable Beach and Sandals Royal Bahamian’s recent upgrades, were between 90-95 percent Bahamian. “The challenge is they [developers] ask the Government to demonstrate the skills capacity within the industry,” he added.

“That’s what our failing is. The Government doesn’t have the data to support the argument we have the skills capacity to build these projects. If ever the Government gives the BCA an opportunity to advise on how to properly negotiate that part of the Heads of Agreement, that will yield a better result and outcome.”

The BCA chief also said greater enforcement by the Department of Labour is required in ensuring projects live up to their Bahamian worker ratio obligations otherwise “the developer can do whatever they want to do.

“One part of the argument is the Government does not have enough information to negotiate a different kind of agreement, and the Government should have done a better job with the Department of Labour of enforcing the Heads of Agreement,” he added.

The issue of how many Bahamian contractors and construction workers were employed at The Pointe, a $200m development now featuring the Margaritaville resort, condo hotel, parking lot, retail, office and other amenities, was a long-running controversy amid work that largely took place under the Minnis administration.

Numerous calls were made for the Department of Labour to investigate whether CCA was breaching the project Heads of Agreement, and denying contractors and their employees much-needed income. CCA was so insistent on a majority Chinese workforce that it threatened to “downsize” The Pointe project unless it got its way.

This was triggered by a May 13, 2015, e-mail from Sir Baltron Bethel, Prime Minister Perry Christie’s senior policy adviser, to Daniel Liu, CCA Bahamas senior vice-president, which said: “I refer to your May 7 e-mail and your suggested language relating to the 70:30 ratio of Bahamian to non-Bahamian labour. This ratio applies only to persons employed in construction.”

He then proposed altering the draft Heads of Agreement text to reflect this, amending a version that stipulated the same 70:30 ratio in favour of Bahamian workers was also to apply to operations staff and management. Sir Baltron’s version confirmed that Bahamian sub-contractors “will perform at least 40 percent of the construction work”, and be included as part of the 70:30 split.

Yet Mr Christie’s senior policy adviser crossed out language that included operations and management staff in this ratio. This provoked fury from Mr Liu and CCA, with the former writing: “It’s impossible for us to employ 70 percent Bahamian construction workers on the project because that only leaves 30 percent left as Chinese construction workers.

“If we have 400 Chinese workers that means we’d have to employ over 900 Bahamians. Then employ a further 500 permanent staff to run the hotel. For a start we won’t need 1,300 people to build this project and, second, why are the permanent staff being excluded or described differently from construction workers........ Jobs are jobs, right?”

CCA argued that “the super structure and shell and base build, large MEP (mechanical, engineering and plumbing” were construction skills “most Bahamians do not possess”, indicating that the fit-out of The Pointe’s retail stores was more appropriate for locals.

Mr Liu justified the contractor’s stance by pointing to American and Mexican workers engaged on Baha Mar’s multi-storey car park and Atlantis’ MEP works, respectively, and added: “I think there is a misunderstanding at Cabinet level as to what’s possible on our project re: labour and also what’s available in the local work pool.”