The latest “situation” that the Minister of Immigration, Keith Bell has found himself caught up in is just an indication of how the New day Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) government thinks of itself as having laws unto themselves, while the law of the land is applied to the rest of  us evenly and rapidly.

This extending beyond him using his office and the powers vested in him as some sort of lottery or is this just more of the same?

“BELL ADMITS CHINESE HOTEL WORKERS FREED: Minister refuses questions over ‘irregularities’ – The Tribune

Excerpt from this article;

“IMMIGRATION Minister Keith Bell admitted yesterday that some Chinese nationals working at the British Colonial Hilton in January were released from custody and returned to the construction site despite the “irregularities” that prompted officers to detain them.

Mr. Bell said “it was determined that given all of the circumstances”, taking the people to the detention centre for processing was unnecessary.

He did not say who determined this, and he refused questions from reporters.

Free National Movement leader Michael Pintard has claimed senior immigration officials sent a letter to the permanent secretary expressing concern about Mr. Bell’s intervention in the January 17 matter.

Citing information from unnamed officials, Mr. Pintard said buses were loaded with Chinese nationals, but Mr. Bell intervened to release them.

“The government was advised that the hotel required extensive renovation works,” Mr. Bell told reporters before a Cabinet meeting yesterday. “The work, as with other large projects, necessitated the importation of temporary foreign workers. Given the construction processes, varying workers are required for elements of the project. As specialised workers complete their tasks, they leave the country and new specialists re-enter.

“In January of this year, the Department of Immigration, as part of its ongoing efforts to ensure compliance with our immigration laws, discovered a number of irregularities with the status of workers at the British Colonial Hilton construction site.

“Whilst the irregularities required immediate action, it was determined that given all of the circumstances, taking the persons at the detention centre was unnecessary. It is important to note that the employer, as with almost every other major hotel redevelopment, has a heads of agreement with the government of The Bahamas to permit the temporary importation of foreign construction workers.

“Secondly, the irregularities found at the site could and were expeditiously cured by the employer. And thirdly, the completion of the renovation works at the British Colonial property will address and add critically needed hotel rooms on New Providence and create additional employment and opportunities for Bahamians.”

Former Immigration Minister Brent Symonette said he would have allowed officials of the Department of Immigration to do their job

“A minister,” he said yesterday, “shouldn’t interfere at that level unless it’s a matter of national security or public interest or something way beyond that, but if there are workers working there illegally, they should be arrested and whatever happens happens, especially since his prime minister said he won’t tolerate whatever.”

I have questions: what “irregularities”?

And “given which circumstances” exactly?

First, if “the employer has an agreement with the government of The Bahamas to permit the temporary importation of foreign construction workers”, why does there seem to be a problem on site with documentation?

Secondly, what were the “irregularities found at the site [that] could and were expeditiously cured by the employer’?

And thirdly; why is the completion date of this project even being considered/brought up as a mitigating factor in the detention of these foreign nationals that seemed to, at the time, to be undocumented?

I saw this article and read it and had flashbacks of when a certain Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Member of Parliament contacted an Island Administrator concerning one woman’s “good son”.

At that time the laws of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas seemed to have been circumvented by the words of a member of parliament, is that who we really are?  A nation where “justice” is for sale?

It seems that the PLP, in any form Old or New, has one basic problem; which seems to be its inability to not see it self’s as being above the laws of The Bahamas; only applying and adhering to them when most convenient and then they go on to ask the rest of the country to turn and blind eye to it all or just to “carry water in a basket”.

END