I was having an argument with a friend of mine from another caribbean country. He was upset that the Bahamas didn't sign on to caricom and was ranting about how we feel we're too good for the rest of the caribbean and therefore we should back out of CARICOM. Anyway the extent of that argument is another story....
I came across this story which I shared with him and thought you guys would find interesting...
JAMAICANS ENCOURAGED TO APPLY FOR CARICOM RECOGNITION OF SKILLS CERTIFICATE
By: Ann-Margaret Lim, Monday, November 24, 2005
http://www.jis.gov.jm/special_sections/caricomnew/jamaicansEncouragedTo.html
Jamaicans are being encouraged to take advantage of the CARICOM Skills Recognition Certificate, which will allow them the freedom to live and work in another CARICOM member state.
Though the Ministry of Labour and Social Security issued the first Skills Certificate in 1997, the first Jamaican applicant at the Ministry did not surface until 2004. To date, the Ministry has issued 400 Skills Certificates with 147 going to nationals of Trinidad and Tobago.
The Skills Certificate replaces work permits and allows CARICOM nationals the freedom to work in member states under the Free Movement of Labour clause of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).
Speaking with JIS News, Veronica Robinson, Senior Director for Work Permits at the Ministry, reveals that Jamaicans are not yet leading the pack of applicants at the Ministry’s offices. Only 78 Jamaicans have applied for Skills Certificates to work in other CARICOM countries.
This number, however, represents only those persons, who have applied for the document in Jamaica, since CARICOM nationals may apply for the skills certificate in either the home or the host country. This means that a Jamaican citizen may choose to apply for the skills certificate here at the Ministry of Labour and Social Security or opt to do so in the member state in which he/she has been employed.
Highlighting what she viewed as one of the reasons for the relatively fewer number of applications for Skills Certificates from Jamaica, Mrs. Robinson pointed out that the absence of some countries from the list of the CSME member states accounted for this.
“When we tell interested applicants that the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas are not included in the list of states participating in free movement under the CSME, they are no longer interested,” she says.
Whilst Bahamas is a CARICOM member state, the country has chosen not to be included in the Single Market and Economy aspect of CARICOM. The Cayman Islands on the other hand, is an associate state to CARICOM, not a member state and is therefore by choice excluded from the impending CSME.
Jamaica, Mrs. Robinson notes, was one of the earlier facilitators of the Skills Certificate alongside Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana.
“There have been 84 successful applicants from Guyana, 50 from Barbados, 15 from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 12 from Saint Lucia, nine from Antigua and Barbuda, eight from Belize and the rest are in lower single digits,” she outlined.
Although the Ministry did not disclose the categories for the applicants, it says that, ‘they fit into all the categories.’
These are: graduates from recognised universities, artistes, musicians, sportspersons, media workers and managers, technical and supervisory staff attached to a company or self employed persons.
Pointing out that his unit has been receiving queries about the Skills Certificate, Robert Miller, Head of the CSME Unit in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade tells JIS News that Jamaicans have enquired whether the certificate was applicable to North American states.
In his response, Mr. Miller encouraged Jamaicans to see the CSME as giving CARICOM nationals greater market and job access and reinforces the need for Jamaicans to apply for the Skills Certificate, which is a CARICOM document.
Both ministries agree that Jamaica’s comparatively small number of Skills Certificate applications is in part due to the popularity of Europe, especially Britain, North America, the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas as traditional work-related immigrant destinations.
Addressing the requirement that now exists for CARICOM nationals to apply for Skills Certificates for every state in which they wished to work, Mr. Miller says that this is changing. “The ministerial heads are now discussing that and they hope by January, to have one generic Recognition of CARICOM Skills Certificate, issued by all member states, eliminating any need to re-apply when relocating to another island. It won’t be country specific,” he promises.
This position to be taken in January is supported by the CARICOM Secretariat, which stipulates that the Certificate of Recognition of CARICOM Skills Qualification should facilitate a CARICOM national’s entry into another member state, apart from that which was issued by the host or home country.
As it now exists however, such an entry will last for six months. In other words, the Skills Certificate now allows for a third country entry, but only for a six-month stay in that third country, during which the CARICOM national’s qualifications will be reviewed by the receiving country (same third country). Once that member state is satisfied that the requirements are met, an indefinite entry will be granted.
Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda and Suriname are the only member states where the skills certificate is issued by the Ministry of Labour. In St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada and Guyana, the Ministries for Caribbean Community Affairs issue the Skills Certificates and in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Belize and Barbados, the certificate is issued by the Ministries of Immigration.
As State Minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator Delano Franklyn disclosed to JIS News recently, the free movement of labour has proven to be one of the more difficult areas of negotiation in the ongoing CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) integration process.
It is also one of the areas, which has comparatively achieved a greater level of advancement, mainly because it was amongst those given earlier attention in the CSME integrative process.

On a lighter note, ZNS had on the jokiest, cheapest, chessiest pageant last week called Ms Caricom. Anybody see it?

Hurrah!!1

Another new person on BI who is willing to post on CSME and economic tings!

Khatty, dey won't listen to me anymore when I talk about Bahamian economic issues. VAT, Sales tax, CSME? Diversification- They tell me "shut dat mess Sunny."

*Sunny handing Khatty a sous and organic tamrind/mango juice from the tuck shop*
:sailing:

To easily win the argument, just tell them we are not in the Caribbean ;)
When he starts ranting and raving, tell him go look on a map and get back to you!

To easily win the argument, just tell them we are not in the Caribbean ;)
When he starts ranting and raving, tell him go look on a map and get back to you!



Yes, we are not in the Caribbean, but we are in CARICOM. We went up and joined CARICOM as a full member. Push up in da pictures erry chance we get. LOL!

I think what Khatty's friend is saying we are trying to have our cake and eat it to by being in CARICOM, taking the "benefits" of that organization, but not joining CSME and taking the risk.


~~


...and in truth Rory the Bahamas probably does think it is too good for CSME. Remember when you said "If it ain't Canadian or US workers, they won't pay?" All of that is apart of our makeup.


~~

Da bizzness people een wan no CSME....and.... da FNM wan WTO, but, errytime I ask a bizness person, dey dodge da question; like it een there.

In any ewent, dey een doin enough on any enn. On da state side, trade side, nor da domestic market side. Just a heap a tawk, wit nuttin behind it. In fact, dey tawkin less bout it an gesturin a whole lotta hand movements.....

I tellin you Sunny, if we doon watch deese people, dey ga slip dis WTO pass uss, and dem goons who on dey knee's blowin away at Ingraham and Symonette, ga cause all a we hardship; uneccesary hardship, when tings cud be bettah.

Frankly,

I don't understand why the Bahamas can't us the model the UK used back in the day when they where considering throwing in with the EU.

The UK kept it's own currency. It also kept tight control on migration of EU persons (in the early days)

Now the EU dollars AND the UK Pound are through the ROOF!

The Bahamas has all the cards and are still playing the game like punks. We could basically run the table at CSME negotiations. Tell them we want a 7-year pass on people moving to the Bahamas since we already have more than our fair share of immigrant. Then we want an immigration cap and the right to adjust that cap.

We also want to keep our own money just like the UK.


The decades between 2020-2050 could be the BOOM-TIME YEARS OF THE BAHAMAS AND CARICOM.

THe US had their boom. The Chinese are in the middle of theirs. India is ramping up.

It is our turn.

Yes, we are not in the Caribbean, but we are in CARICOM. We went up and joined CARICOM as a full member. Push up in da pictures erry chance we get. LOL!

I think what Khatty's friend is saying we are trying to have our cake and eat it to by being in CARICOM, taking the "benefits" of that organization, but not joining CSME and taking the risk.


~~


...and in truth Rory the Bahamas probably does think it is too good for CSME. Remember when you said "If it ain't Canadian or US workers, they won't pay?" All of that is apart of our makeup.


~~

well if it wont drain us, then join, the more the merrier .. :D

Frankly,
I don't understand why the Bahamas can't us the model the UK used back in the day when they where considering throwing in with the EU.
Dat ga make tings too confusin man. Deese people een gat dat kinda tinkin, in fack, dey like it confuse up just da way it is; it's us who getting da woise end.

The UK kept it's own currency. It also kept tight control on migration of EU persons (in the early days)
Still dat way nah.


Now the EU dollars AND the UK Pound are through the ROOF!
The Bahamas has all the cards and are still playing the game like punks.
Wheah all a dis animisity commin from gyal...it een dat dey punks, well, maybe a little punkish. But, dey een know what to do, nor how to go about lookin for what to do. Dis is why da gubment in stand-still cuz, dey een truss no foreigner (at least dey shouldnt truss no merican and european economist) and, da bizzness people who does buy dey politician, een wan nuttin change from da status quo.

It cud be a bit bettah, but, at da risk of losin da whole deck, by THEM, NOT, knowin what da heck dey is doin, I rather it stay status quo too.

We could basically run the table at CSME negotiations. Tell them we want a 7-year pass on people moving to the Bahamas since we already have more than our fair share of immigrant. Then we want an immigration cap and the right to adjust that cap.
Man....aye....you gatti tell deese people dat da next time dey show up late to a CARICOM mettin, and, you gatti tell da little bizness people, dat we cud grow we market if we just use our power. If we doon shape up nah, and I mean within da next 2-5 years, we may as well kiss it goodbye as we won't need it. But, rushin tings nah, ga cause all a we to lose bigger, as well as bring more instability....we een wan dat.

We also want to keep our own money just like the UK.
The decades between 2020-2050 could be the BOOM-TIME YEARS OF THE BAHAMAS AND CARICOM.
THe US had their boom. The Chinese are in the middle of theirs. India is ramping up.
It is our turn.

You so sensashinal......lawd geezus woman. It een dat desperate. Our population is holdin we together, so, we een need no big time tings. We does make out simple and da people who wan more, cud get a break to get more if dey want.

Dis game to play, een in our best interest because "uddah people" wan us play because dey say so. I say, we ga play when we good and damn ready.
:bahamas:

Wit dat, we een gatti rush erryting one time. Ya dig!?!

To easily win the argument, just tell them we are not in the Caribbean ;)
When he starts ranting and raving, tell him go look on a map and get back to you!

rory i could excuse everything else...but in this issue u continue to prove yourself to be the biggest jackazz in the caribbean...the bahamas is a part of the caribbean no matter what your little eastern road perspective might lead you to believe....maybe your little neighbourhood isn't in the caribbean...but the rest of us bahamians live quite comfortably in the CARIBBEAN....

just get over it....

Yes, we are not in the Caribbean, but we are in CARICOM. We went up and joined CARICOM as a full member. Push up in da pictures erry chance we get. LOL!

I think what Khatty's friend is saying we are trying to have our cake and eat it to by being in CARICOM, taking the "benefits" of that organization, but not joining CSME and taking the risk.


~~


...and in truth Rory the Bahamas probably does think it is too good for CSME. Remember when you said "If it ain't Canadian or US workers, they won't pay?" All of that is apart of our makeup.


~~

all dat heat in da tuck shop affecting your eyes or your brains...the Bahamas is in the caribbean...the Bahamian archipelago makes up one third of the caribbean archipelago....

ya'll do some research before you assert these 'facts'...

rory i could excuse everything else...but in this issue u continue to prove yourself to be the biggest jackazz in the caribbean...the bahamas is a part of the caribbean no matter what your little eastern road perspective might lead you to believe....maybe your little neighbourhood isn't in the caribbean...but the rest of us bahamians live quite comfortably in the CARIBBEAN....
just get over it....

bey you one nasty lil biatch now - WE ARE NOT IN THE CARIBBEAN - if you know otherwise, post a map that shows it - otherwise shut the fawk up. Dont get nasty with me if you dont want me to get nasty back, cause i dont play, ya hear.!!!

bey you nasty now - WE ARE NOT IN THE CARIBBEAN - if you know otherwise, post a map that shows it - otherwise shut the fawk up.
you post the map u ignorant azz and then tell me who has no sense cause a couple foolish bahamians that can't interpret their own constitution tell you we're not a part of the caribbean u believe them...lol

:bouncy: :voodoo: :voodoo: :bouncy: :bouncy:

if you don't know the Bahamas makes up one third of the caribbean archipelago then you're the jackazz....jackazz...

all dat heat in da tuck shop affecting your eyes or your brains...the Bahamas is in the caribbean...the Bahamian archipelago makes up one third of the caribbean archipelago....
ya'll do some research before you assert these 'facts'...

I was simply responding to Rory.

All I was saying is that if folks want to say we are not apart of the Caribbean, then we should not be pushing up our hip in CARICOM trying to be in every box knock and photo op.

You have the benefits without doing the heavy lifting.

you post the map u ignorant azz and then tell me who has no sense cause a couple foolish bahamians that can't interpret their own constitution tell you we're not a part of the caribbean u believe them...lol
:bouncy: :voodoo: :voodoo: :bouncy: :bouncy:
if you don't know the Bahamas makes up one third of the caribbean archipelago then you're the jackazz....jackazz...

LOL too funny .. only ignant one here is you cause you call me a jackazz but you cant find anything to back it up with ... go finger a potcake or something.