Bahamas News

The government is hoping to roll out a new immigration policy soon, after having received input from leaders of the financial services and business sectors.

It was one of the disclosures that came from Minister of State for Immigration Senator Elma Campbell, as members of the business community grilled a panel of Cabinet ministers at the Meet The Ministers Forum on Thursday sponsored by the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce.

“During the course of the year, I have had some dialogue with the financial services board and other groups and I’m happy to say that it was as result of that dialogue we were able to be more sensitized to more of the issues the general public is facing,” she said.

“In convening meetings of the immigration board subsequent to meetings with the chamber, that has helped us as we have made giant steps in formulating our immigration policy which we hope to bring to a head pretty soon.”

Officials are planning to have the policy properly documented and accessibly by the average citizen.

“I think the policy would answer many outstanding questions,” she said. “We have also spent the year focusing on ourselves, training our people all in an effort to better serve the public and while I accept that you…still feel that we are taking too long to process various your various applications, I do believe that some strides have been made and, in many cases, we have been able to abridge that time frame.”

For instance, Senator Campbell reported that the immigration department is trying to process work permits more efficiently.

In 2007, the department issued 13,413 work permits, 2,901 resident permits, 6,292 short-term permits, 75 homeowners’ cards and 369 resident spouse permits. This fiscal year, the Department of Immigration launched its electronic border protection and permits system that is expected to be fine-tuned. The system is designed to ensure that the only persons able to present and use the department’s permits and certificates would be the persons to whom they are issued.

Under the three public immigration audits conducted in New Providence, Freeport, Grand Bahama and Marsh Harbour, Abaco some 1,936 persons registered; 1,139 in New Providence, 470 in Grand Bahama, and 327 in Abaco.

As he underwent scrutiny, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Brent Symonette reported on the processing of e-passports has caused grave frustrations in recent months. Long lines are continued to snake outside the Bahamas Passport Office which is weighed down by a significant backlog in this high travel season.

Minister Symonette said although 170 passport applications are being accepted per day only roughly 100 passports are being produced.

“There is a backlog because if you make an appointment today you may get a date close to September,” he said.

“We take appointments every fifteen minutes every single day of the week but the problem is that every person feels as if they should come to the office now and register. If your passport has not expired you do not need to apply for a new one. If you run out of pages or your passport has been lost or destroyed or because you’re a student travelling, you can come in.”

Passport officials are hoping to be up to date with their processing load by September.

He also told chamber members that the government is moving planning to open an embassy in China.

“We will shortly be announcing the ambassador to China and that person will take up a full time post and in so doing we will be launching a Bahamian embassy in China as opposed to going through the British embassy there,” he said. “This will be a great leap forward to help business persons travelling from China to the Bahamas for business purposes. They will be able to get visas from those offices for travel.”

A well-placed senior government official told the Bahama Journal that the person tapped to be the new ambassador to China is Senator Elma Campbell following an imminent Cabinet reshuffle.

Mr. Symonette also announced that the government also plans to open diplomatic offices in Atlanta, Georgia and Brussels, Germany.

The Meet the Ministers Forum was one of the highly anticipated events on the schedule for this year’s Chamber Week. President of chamber Dionisio D’Aguilar applauded the ministers for their attendance. He said chamber officials felt it was necessary to give the business community an update on various issues.

“This gives us the ability to access the decision makers in our country because too often our members feel that access to a cabinet minister is difficult given their grueling schedules, so it is now known that at least once a year access is facilitated through this forum,” he said. “In addition, the chamber felt it was important for the ministers to be given a forum to articulate – outside the formal setting of Parliament in an extremely brief and specific way – what they have achieved over the past year and what they want to achieve in the upcoming year.”

He said the forum was “purposely positioned” to occur right after the budget debate so that members could question and enquire about the decisions that were made and discover the rationale for what is being planned.

Other cabinet ministers who attended the forum were Minister of Lands and Local Government, Sidney Collie; Minister of State for Public Utilities, Phenton Neymour; Minister of Housing and National Insurance, Kenneth Russell and Minister of Health and Social Development, Dr. Hubert Minnis.

Source: Bahama Journal