While the issue concerning the renewal of Tribune managing editor John Marquis has not been resolved, it will be done so impartially irrespective of whatever position The Tribune has taken or is taking toward the PLP, Immigration Minister Shane Gibson said yesterday.
The Minister made the statement yesterday while appearing on More 94’s talk show Real Talk Live hosted by Jeff Lloyd.
It has been asserted in some quarters that the deferral of the work permit was a tactic by government in retaliation against several critical articles Mr Marquis wrote in The Tribune’s Insight section.
However, Mr Gibson said that this was not so.
“If someone wanted to get back at The Tribune it (the work permit) would not be deferred: It would have been refused. If we wanted to get back at John Marquis he would have been gone,” Mr Gibson said.
The minister said that the only difference between The Tribune and other companies is that other companies are not “paranoid”.
“They respond to us right away when we ask them for information. Every other company who would be in that same category simply complied, but The Tribune because of who they are and them being very paranoid – if you notice anything having to do with the government they get very defensive – if they check and they do their investigations they would see that we have approached over 100 companies and all of them complied it was only The Tribune who decided to put pressure on us through the press,” the minister said.
Mr Gibson admitted that the policy of Bahamianization has not been applied consistently but there has been a concerted effort to apply all of the policies that he met in place after taking over the cabinet post.
“Like I told them they could write about me in every single editorial from now until election. If they don’t comply with the policy that can’t help Mr Marquis. I think we had someone who went there already and interviewed them and the report was sent to my office and that report is what will assist them, not writing about Shane Gibson or writing about the PLP government. They can write about us until doomsday but if they don’t satisfy the policy they will not have that work permit renewed,” he said.
The policy that is in place; he said, is for the employer to ensure that over a reasonable period of time that they would train a Bahamian to eventually take over that position.
“Because when you apply for the work permit you apply with the understanding that there are no Bahamians qualified to fill the position. Our position is that you have to make sure you give a genuine effort, because sometimes people say they give an effort but they are not genuine. They do barely enough to make you believe that they want to replace a person with a Bahamian individual,” Mr Gibson said.
However, he admitted that there are exceptions to this policy where there are certain position that are not asked to be Bahaminized, particularly in the financial services sector.
Mr Gibson said it is his opinion that the work permit system was abused simply because there has been no enforcement of the laws and policies on the books.
“So when companies realize that we are not monitoring or enforcing them as effectively as we can, then they take advantage of the situation,” Mr Gibson said.
Tribune publisher Eileen Carron said she does not know when The Tribune has not complied with the Immigration Department’s requirements or requests. She said that on August 18 she received a letter from Immigration saying that Mr Marquis’ application “has been reconsidered by the Immigration Board, but was deferred for The Tribune Ltd to identify an understudy for the said position.”
“If Mr Gibson would check The Tribune’s application and all the forms required to be submitted with it,” said Mrs Carron, “he will discover the information now requested in his department’s letter of August 18 was given to his Ministry by The Tribune on January 26 this year.”
Source: The Tribune
