Former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham yesterday blasted the government for allowing a group of foreign workers to erect Junkanoo bleachers along the Cable Beach Strip and he questioned whether they had work permits and had paid business license fees.
Speaking in the House of Assembly on a Bill to Amend the Business License Act, the FNM MP for North Abaco suggested that the contracted Canadian company may be breaking the law if it did not have in its possession a business license.
“They need work permits unless, of course, they are employed by the Ministry. If they are employed by the Ministry then they do not need work permits,” Mr. Ingraham said.
“If they are independent contractors who are performing a service to the Bahamas in pursuance to an agreed sum of the money and scope of works then they need work permits. The 12 of them need work permits.”
The answers to his questions were not immediately forthcoming.
In response to Mr. Ingraham’s inquiries on whether the Canadian company had a license to engage in the business of putting up bleachers, Minister of Labour Minister and Immigration Vincent Peet said, “We are debating a Bill to make that the law.”
However, the former Prime Minister was adamant that that is the law today.
Minister Peet later promised to find out if the workers needed to be in possession of work permits and a business license.
Mr. Ingraham pointed out that for the past 50 years Bahamians have looked forward to earning some extra dollars around Christmas time by trucking and setting up bleachers for the country’s number one past time.
Minister of Youths Sports and Culture Neville Wisdom, meanwhile, urged Mr. Ingraham against joining in the attempt “to abort something that could be good for our country.”
According to Mr. Wisdom, the government decided to go with a foreign company because of concerns over “inadequate” old bleachers. He later told House Members that some of the old bleachers would be transported to Freeport to be used in Junkanoo parades there.
Additionally, the new bleachers reportedly have special safety and security measures, with a new “engineering plan.”
The former Prime Minister turned the tables on Minister Wisdom, saying he did not agree that Bahamians could not put up safe and secure bleachers and did not like the Minister saying they should “try to learn” to erect them from the Canadian-based company.
Mr. Ingraham said that he was privy to information that a number of Mr. Wisdom’s ministerial colleagues “on the front bench,” took exception to the Culture Minister signing a contract without consultation with them first.
“It was not I who was questioning him,” Mr. Ingraham said. “It was some of his colleagues in Cabinet with him who spread the word to whomsoever they could find about what you did, how wrong it was, how it was not approved by them and how they had to read about it in the newspapers.”
But Minister Peet said Mr. Ingraham’s claims were unfounded.
Mr. Ingraham also claimed that Mr. Wisdom had “difficulties” accessing the money to jumpstart the work on erecting the bleachers.
He advised Mr. Wisdom never to tell his colleagues if he had Prime Minister Perry Christie’s approval.
“You take the heat and talk to the chief later,” Mr. Ingraham said.
The former Prime Minister said his contribution to the debate was designed to make a very telling point about foreigners working in the Bahamas without a permit, or business licence.
Mr. Ingraham said while parliamentarians from across the political divide agree on a Bahamian-first policy. It was okay for governments to differ on what jobs should be given to foreigners.
“I would not have agreed that foreigners were needed to put up bleachers. That’s my view. I would not have agreed to put up 12 foreigners in the hotel from November to January to put up bleaches,” he said.
“That doesn’t make what you did wrong though because I don’t agree. We just happen to differ. I don’t condemn you for being non-Bahamian. I don’t condemn you for selling the Bahamas out to foreigners.”
By Tosheena Blair, The Bahama Journal
