The Tribune

BY Annelia Nixon

Tribune Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

Bahamian land surveyors yesterday renewed concerns that expatriates hired by the Government to address the backlog of Crown Land applications are costing them jobs and income by doing private work on the side.

Rodrick Wood, the Bahamas Association of Land Surveyors (BALS) president, and other union members argued that The Bahamas already has sufficient and qualified surveyors to do the work and that it was unnecessary to recruit foreigners.

And Reggie Patterson, its vice-president, asserted: “They are also doing private work and are taking large private survey jobs at a major development as the surveyor of record outside the terms of employment and Immigration work permits,” he added. “This is unacceptable. This would be impossible for me, as a surveyor, to go to the US, Jamaica or wherever.”

Mr Patterson challenged why non-Bahamians can do this, and said that while the BALS council has reported the matter to the relevant authorities, no investigation has occurred.

He said the BALS council and members supplied the union’s nominations to the Land Surveyors Board, but these have yet to be honoured or implemented, which is legally required to fully constitute the Board with the required number of members. Mr Patterson called on the Government to “perform its duty to appoint our nominations and properly constitute the Land Surveyors Board.

“We were the only country kicked out of the International Federation of Surveyors, creating international embarrassment for our country and our profession,” he said. “We are now proudly reinstated.

“We have every intention of sending some members of the council, if not all, to the FIG (International Federation of Surveyors) conference in Cape Town, South Africa, which is going to be from May 23 to the 29th of this year. We are going to show the whole world that The Bahamas is back. We're serious. We're not just names on paper. Here we are.”

Mr Wood said the union is also looking forward to a new and updated Land Surveyors Act, adding: “We have a Surveyors and Geomatics Professions Bill 2019. We're looking forward to seeing this implemented. The Surveyors Act was last implemented in 1975. That's a long time ago, and a lot has changed since then. Procedures and technology has changed, but we're still mandated to follow the act of 1975.”

He said the data surveyors rely on, and which is used to measure and locate parcels of land and create legal descriptions, “is very weak right now.” Mr Woods said the assistance BALS gets from the Department of Lands and Surveys also needs improvement. 

The land surveyors union is also helping other Trades Union Congress (TUC) affiliates apply for Crown Land, it was revealed yesterday.

Mr Wood said: “The Bahamas Association of Land Surveyors is partnered with the TUC, the Trade Union Congress, and we are doing our part to work along with them to assist in their applications for Crown Land. All these organisations, we are supporting the idea that each of these organisations should be entitled to receive Crown Land to have their own office complex on their basis of operation.  

“I don't know if some organisations are paying rent for buildings. We would like to see that change, and we intend to do our part to support that. We will assist these organisations in submitting their applications, and making sure that their applications are presented in a way that is likely to be as successful as it can be in the shortest possible time by using our technical skills and our knowledge of the profession to get those applications prepared and submitted.”

The Bahamas Educators Managerial Union, a TUC affiliate, is one of those that the surveyors will be assisting. “We shall commit to doing our part as the Bahamas Association of Land Surveyors, to assisting you with having this application reviewed with the hope of getting a quick favourable response,” Mr Wood added.

Obie Ferguson KC, the TUC president, added: “And what I like about what he said, in particular, is every trade union that is associated with Trade Union Congress will have a plot of land, a couple acres. We will submit that to the Government, and we will insist that it happens for all the trade unions as critical. 

“Everybody else can get it 50, 70 acres at different points, and we can't even get an acre. Well, we will change that. Whatever we have to do. We going to do it to have that corrected. This country is our country. We own this land. We can't allow other people to come in and take over and run it the way they want to run it. But when they get to Bahamians, something is unusual. But last time I checked it, I saw a company got 50 something acres. We can't find an acre or two for each union.”