Minister of Immigration and National Insurance, the Hon. Alfred Sears, arrived in Governor’s Harbour, Eleuthera on Friday morning, March 28th, 2025 on a multi-purpose visit, where he met with Immigration officers and staff on the ground, as well as with National Insurance staff. During the day, he and his teams visited irregular migrant settlements in various local communities, and also stopped in to the Disney’s Lookout Cay port at Lighthouse Point, before returning to Governor’s Harbour where he engaged Eleutheran community members in a town hall meeting at Worker’s House on Friday evening – with some in attendance from as far north as Harbour Island.
Minister Sears, in his opening remarks during the evening town hall gave an overview of the functions of the two ministries under his portfolio – Immigration and National Insurance (NIB), and some of the recent actions ongoing within those ministries, to address issues and concerns of the Bahamian public, and to improve their overall function – embracing the digital future, human resource needs, and operational efficiencies. The town hall, he commented, was a platform for his ministry to connect with the people, address concerns, and gather insights for better governance in immigration and national insurance.
Accompanying the minister during the town hall were executive teams from both immigration and national insurance, on hand to take questions and provide feedback, including; Chief Immigration Officer Chedville Adams, Chief Immigration Officer for Eleuthera Jennifer Kelly, Immigration Director Dr. William Pratt, Permanent Secretary Ellison Greenslade, NIB Chairman Philip McKenzie, NIB Director Dr. Tami Francis, NIB Deputy Director Jeffrey Moncur, NIB Eleuthera Office Manager Cassandra Knowles, along with Member of Parliament for Central and South Eleuthera Minister Clay Sweeting.
During the evening Minister Sears commenting on immigration services, and some of the actions being taken to tackle issues of manpower, enforcement and morale, said, “We are on course to increase the resources of the immigration department in terms of additional numbers. We brought in 100 officers last year. We will bring in 100 officers this year, which we are in the process of recruitment now… The full complement of immigration officers in Eleuthera is currently 20 plus, but certainly given the concerns raised and given our assessment so far in the district, we will be increasing that number.
“We will also provide the equipment and tools that the officers need to be effective at our borders, our ports of entry, as well as in the field… We sent two trucks [to Eleuthera] about a week ago and additional vehicles are being sourced. Now we are in conversation with the Ministry of Finance and as soon as we have the additional vehicles, there will be a distribution to Eleuthera as well as other family islands.”
He continued, commenting on improving morale with promotions, training and technology upgrades, saying, “We also will address long standing HR concerns which is promotion and regularization of immigration officers. We have submitted over 500 recommendations for promotion and regularization of officers… We recognize that morale has been challenged because of the lengthy interval in promotions and so on. We are addressing that and we expect that within a very short order the Public Service Commission will be issuing the letters of promotion. And I can tell you that on the island of Eleuthera, overwhelmingly most of the officers would be promoted… We’re also upgrading the technology both at Immigration and NIB as well as providing opportunities for training both in the country as well as outside the country so that we can make this jurisdiction a jurisdiction of best practice in terms of border security and a best practice in terms of Social Security.
“We also have a very special need for the officers who are boarding cruise ships and clearing thousands of passengers, that they have advanced passenger information, and have the manifests beforehand, so that they can determine whether there are any undesirable persons who should not be allowed to be landed, whether a restricted landing or unrestricted landing…at all three ports… Disney (Lookout Cay), Princess Cruises (Princess Cay), and Carnival (Half Moon Cay)…”
Switching gears to speak about changes and actions taking place within the National Insurance Board, Minister Sears noted, “I am pleased with the progress being made at NIB. We’ve recruited a new executive management team through a competitive process. We have also introduced a number of apps which give the insured an opportunity to see where their contribution status is, as well as small and medium sized entrepreneurs to pay digitally, making it easier and saving them time. We are also emphasizing training in NIB as well as the improvement of customer relations and then to have a complete overhaul of the digital platform so that it is more nimble.
“The other area of focus at NIB is to better manage the $1.2 billion fund, in terms of getting a better rate of return on the investment and to improve the quality of stewardship, so that we can generate saving and hopefully, in going forward, it would obviate the need to have contribution increases every two years. So, it’s a very aggressive and ambitious program. But, I am confident that the team that we have assembled has the capacity, the tenacity and also the technical experience to fulfill the mandate that we have given them.”
Mr. Chedville Adams, Chief Immigration Officer out of New Providence, accompanying Minister Sears, commenting on some of the immigration challenges on the island, and plans to address them, said, “The first thing we must realize about Eleuthera, is it’s economic growth. So, it’s going to draw migrants here. Wherever there’s economic growth, it’s going to draw migrants. The issue we have here is something that the minister spoke about… We’re going to address the fact that we need more manpower – to deal with our enforcement issues. So, we are putting a strategic plan in place to approach that… We want the community to know that we understand what they’re facing in this meeting, and we have heard exactly what they have to say. So, Palmetto Point will be one of our strategic moves, and we’ll make sure that Ms. Kelly, Officer-In-Charge, has the resources and the manpower to ensure that she has an effective enforcement unit here in Eleuthera.”
Jennifer Kelly, Chief Immigration Officer for the island of Eleuthera following the town hall meeting, noted, “The whole idea was for the minister and his executive team to come over and assure the people that we hear them. We understand that there are some situations in this community, and we are putting measures in place to try and solve some of them, and to work on those. So, there will be some changes, especially in the area of enforcement. You should see a strengthening in that, because we now realize that Eleuthera will need more emphasis on enforcement due to the many complaints that we are getting, especially from the area of Palmetto Point.”
Ms. Kelly continued, “We are seeing a general increase in migrants on the island of Eleuthera, especially in certain areas like Palmetto Point, Harbour Island, and even in Gregory Town. So we realize that we have to put some new measures in place to try and manage this. We are working at it. And you will see some changes shortly. We don’t want to put in a temporary solution, as we’ve been doing that. We’ve been bringing in our enforcement team and we’ve been doing raids. Then, they come right back or, it’s the same situation, and it hasn’t been resolved. We are trying to see if we could have a more permanent solution where Eleuthera has its own team.”
Officer Kelly also highlighted the fact that since the demolition of unregulated structures during early 2024 within the area of Blackwood, North Eleuthera, displaced residents would have moved into housing available in other townships. This would be one factor, she said, that was contributing to local community members seeing more foreign residents within the different areas. One positive note on that she added, was that these individuals and families were likely in better living conditions than they were previously.
New Director of the National Insurance Board, Dr. Tami Francis, also gave an update during the town hall on priorities and work being done within NIB, and answered a number of questions by the evening’s audience. She noted, “We embarked on a very comprehensive eight to nine month process last year to reshape NIB because we realized that we were receiving a number of complaints related to performance. We were, as most of you are aware, if not all of you, that there are some systemic concerns about the longevity of NIB if we don’t turn things around. So, we started off on that track to secure the future of the fund for all contributors, and at the same time, immediately and in the present, to ensure that we were able to deal with some of the complaints which persons were coming to us about. We just reshaped the entire executive management, and the board has charged them with the responsibility of helping us reshape the way we do business.”
