Business mogul and President of Super Wash Limited Dionisio D’Aguilar has made it known that he is in full support of more foreign workers to The Bahamas.

During an appearance on the JCN/Love 97 programme Jones and Company Mr. D’Aguilar noted that Bahamians need not feel threatened by the amount of foreigners in the country’s labour force as it is needed and should be welcomed.

“Let’s open our economy to PhDs and people that are innovative. In the United States if you go there with a Masters or a PhD, they welcome you with open arms.”

Mr. D’Aguilar said that about 4,000 of the 7,000 work permits issued for foreigners to work in The Bahamas are for gardeners and housekeepers.

“In my opinion you need a certain amount of foreign component in this country, because they come in with different ideas. If you closed it down and it was strictly Bahamian, you wouldn’t get the benefit of someone that’s travelled, lived in a different country and done it differently.”

“There’s a transfer of knowledge. It’s not all that bad.”

He debunked the theory that he does not put ‘Bahamians first’ stating that out of the 120 employees in his company there are only three work permits.

Mr. D’Aguilar believes that Bahamians should get rid of the mentality that foreigners are taking over the nation and instead view it as a positive.

According to Mr. D’Aguilar, 99 per cent of companies in The Bahamas have a work force which is 99 per cent of Bahamian labour.

“If you take Atlantis for example, it has 8,000 employees, I bet you Atlantis has less than 80 work permits, which is less than one per cent,” he said.

“Those foreign investors have come in and it’s been a ‘God-sent’ for this country. They’ve made substantial investments and created an enormous wealth for Bahamians, in terms of job numbers.”

He says the government, no matter which party is in control, should be to blame for creating unnecessary jobs to fulfill campaign promises.

“This is what we do. We slam people into positions where they’re not needed and then we create this burden for the tax payer,” he said.

When it comes to the Baha Mar project, Mr. D’Aguilar says that Bahamians should be patient and prepare themselves for the thousands of jobs that will be available.

“I know for myself that the folks there at Baha Mar are working hard to ensure that there a lot of jobs for Bahamians both before and after the property is opened,” he said.

He said that Bahamians need to get over the fact that the Chinese are building it saying, “It seems as though Bahamians forgot that Indians built Crystal Palace.”

During his appearance, Mr. D’Aguilar also slammed present and past governments for spending money unnecessarily.
He believes things like pension where the government pays 100 per cent is not something that the country can sustain.

“We’re not a rich country. They don’t do that anywhere else in the world but here,” he said.