By: STIRLING STRACHAN

Bahamas Information Services

#NASSAU, The Bahamas, August 21, 2022 –  The Ministry of Labour and Immigration in conjunction with the Ministry of Economic Affairs held a press conference to launch the Department of Labour’s Vacancy Notice Services on MyGateway, Wednesday, August 17, 2022 at the Ministry of Labour.

“I am confident that making the Vacancy Notice Application available online is a sign that we have heard our clients and we are in tune with the vision of the Government of The Bahamas,” said the Hon. Keith Bell, Minister of Labour and Immigration.

“We are not here to simply talk about making a process paperless or extending a service to more islands,” Minister Bell said.  “We are here to herald a moment in time where we have made a government service more easily accessible and its process more transparent.

“The new service will enable employers to apply for a Labour Certificate, upload all of the supporting documents to facilitate the application, pay for the service and obtain a certified labour certificate from any place in the world.  In addition to significantly reducing the time to process and application, the new system will also allow the staff of the Department of Labour to have digital access to date that will reduce fraud and attempts by unscrupulous persons to have multiple applicants applying for the same job.  As this project was completed in conjunction with the staff of the Department of Immigration, the personnel can also authenticate each Labour Certificate that accompanies an application for a work permit,” Minister Bell said.

“The Digital Transformation Unit was created within the Department of Transformation and Digitization in 2019 to focus on the objective of making it easier to do business in The Bahamas. Their work with this Department since November 2021 has been exemplary and made more evident in what we are jointly launching here today. This new digital service signals our collective commitment to build a strong foundation for digital transformation in our nation.

“A great number of employers will reap benefits from taking advantage of this service online, as it saves time and resources, which are both major factors when running a business. It is my hope that they will go on this journey with the Department of Labour and utilize the online option made available.  Moving forward, we will continue to work with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and hopefully onboard more of our service offerings for the benefit of clients near and far. The staff here are excited about this roll-out and have been engaged and trained to work efficiently in this new system. That means when you use it to apply, they will use it to better serve you.

“We are in the midst of a digital revolution and we are ready to work with our clients in new, more progressive ways,” said Minister Bell. “We want to ensure that you are always completely satisfied with our service.  I remind the nation that the Department of Labour remains motivated to encourage the full utilization of Bahamian labourers wherever necessary and will only grant a Labour Certificate when a qualified an available Bahamian is unable to fill the job vacancy. We live and breathe our theme of: “Securing and Safeguarding Decent Work for All.”

Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Wayde Watson spoke at the press conference on behalf of Minister of Economic Affairs, Sen. the Hon Michael Halkitis.

Mr. Watson said there is no doubt that Digital transformation will play a key role in fostering the competitiveness of The Bahamas by reducing the costs of conducting business with the government and help to improve the ease of doing business in the country.

The Government Digital Transformation to Strengthen Competitiveness project has achieved numerous groundbreaking accomplishments, implementing a number of ‘firsts’ for The Bahamas.

1. Developed the Great Bahama Bank – A platform for digital inter-agency connections that allows users to seamlessly register, complete the verification process, and access government services online.
2. Created and launched MyGateway, the buzzword of the day and a part of the reason we are here celebrating with the Department of Labour.
3. Formed the country’s first Cyber Incident Response Team (CIRT) to assess cyber threat vulnerabilities.
4. Created the first Centralized Collection Center for the collection of government documents.

Mr. Watson said, “We have so much to celebrate as a Government, and coming here today as two Ministries in agreement with the vision for change with the launch of this service, Bahamians everywhere should be proud of the GoB’s digital transformation initiatives, consistent with this administration’s Blue Print for change, Digital 700 Revolution.

 “Since its launch in February 2021 MyGateway now boasts of:

• Almost 85,000 registered users, based here in The Bahamas and in over 66 countries around the world.
• We have developed and launched 48 services online for 13 government agencies. Today, The Department of Labour is in that number.
• The portal has received and processed approximately 86,000 requests for various government services.”

(BIS Photos/Ulric Woodside)