LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Immigration Department determines what happens to us socially

Thursday,  August 11, 2005

Dear Sir,

Thanks for allowing me place in your media as a platform to voice my concern and possible solution to the shocking and unacceptable rise in crime in our beautiful Island.

We have seen an increase in crime over the last couple of years even though some in positions of authority have seemed to deny that fact. But we can all agree we have definitely seen a more rapid increase in crime and unfortunately violent crimes since Hurricane Ivan!

This is proof the Immigration Department needs to stop the madness and once again ask for police records from people coming to work here. I also believe we need to stop the backwardness and start requiring visas and fingerprinting in order to apply for a work permit in this Island.

I do realize these are processes that will require time to get in place so for the immediate future I do know one simple solution we can put in place right away. That has to do with requiring construction companies especially to run an advertisement in one of our newspapers to post workers that they have available to work.

These companies should be required to post these adverts with a newspaper, the Chamber of Commerce and the Employment Offices and their neighbourhood supermarkets stating what kind of workers they have available for hire.

The reality of this is that there are 700 plus construction companies, some of which do not even legitimately have work for these people they have taken out permits for.

But there are many whom contractors and ordinary persons in the community have taken out permits for and once that project is done the work permit holders are out of work.

Let me tell you about what I have proven to be true!

I did my own little survey and found something very real. I had a blueprint that I showed to three contractors and asked them for a quote to complete this house. I can say I waited for about 1 month to simply get a price/quote on what it would cost to complete such a home. The disappointing thing was until now two of those companies are still not able to supply me with a quote.

So I decided to run my own adverts in the newspapers asking for construction workers. To my surprise I got about three dozen phone calls from masons and carpenters who said they were available to work. Of course I reminded them they would have to get letters from employers stating permission to work for someone else.

I was very shocked that there are so many people out of work when I can’t get their employers/contractors to get me a written quote of what it would cost to get my work done.

That said something to me and that is: Some of these permit holders are not very skilled workers. That is once they were finished with the mason work and some unskilled carpentry they were out of work until their employer/contractor could get them another job that included mason /cement work.

With many of these workers not being skilled carpenters they could not hang doors, windows and doing finishing work e.g. crown moldings etc on that house. So they would then have to wait until the contractor had time to do a quote to get them some more mason work to do on another house. This could mean these workers were out of work one or two months.

With the high cost of food, utilities and accommodations it is only the wealthy amongst us that can afford to miss even one month of work without feeling the “pinch”.

Many of these masons and unskilled carpenters are only getting paid $10 per hour. With a 5 day work week this means they are only getting paid CI$1600 per month.

How can you afford to miss one month of work on such a salary?

Oh, I did forget to mention above that many of my calls were from relatives who lived on the Island who said that their relative, be it their brother /uncle/ father, etc, would soon be arriving on the Island and they would be given time from Immigration at which time they would be looking for someone to take out a work permit for them.

I even got a call from an employment agency in Jamaica who was trying to find employment in Cayman for people listed there in Jamaica with them.

I ask the question: how many more people will our Immigration grant work permits for? Why have they allowed the numbers of people on this Island to increase while our police force has decreased?

The second reason I know there are people in here on work permits with not enough work to enable them to afford the cost of living. I had a 2 bedroom apartment for rent for $1,800. There were 4 adults that really liked and wanted the apartment but couldn’t because they could not come up with the damage deposit. They said they would need to take two months to pay it.

I do know that two of them are working in construction but they apparently did not have enough work for 5 days a week so therefore could not afford to have the damage deposit that month to secure the apartment.

I am sure you can see this explains a lot. You have got too many masons and carpenters on this Island and not enough work to keep them busy. Therefore you have heard of people sleeping in schools, trailers, garages and three/four people in one bedroom.

I remember years ago Immigration Department having a quota (that was whereby they were asking people to get workers from various Caribbean Islands) to insure that no one nationality was dominant.

I think we all know what can all happen when you clutter up your Island with people that do not have sufficient money to spend on the very bare necessities of life. It is also very unhealthy to have one or two nationalities outnumber your local/native population.

I am saddened to see our Caymanian culture, way of life and values slowly fading away. As Caymanians we shouldn’t stand silently by and see the values and morals that have made us a successful society be demoralized and disrespected.

To give you just one example of what I am talking about go down to the public beach (Seven Mile Beach) on a Sunday afternoon. Observe the alcohol and ganja use and listen to the absolutely loud, vulgar music while our tourist is trying to enjoy a tranquil Cayman Islands.

Our Immigration Department determines what happens to us socially on this Island. I trust they take this very simple but yet very practical suggestion of requiring construction companies (new and old) to post in our local newspapers when they have workers available.

This can help with having so many people on the Island taking out work permits for people who don’t have work to keep them busy all year long. This will in turn be less people for our small police force to have to police.

Jackie Ebanks

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