Jan Spiering: "The immigration committee was set up by the IBF at the end of last year when we started hearing more and more questions from the business community about what exactly does the changes of the immigration requirement mean, what is the flesh to the bones that were put forward.

At that time we set up the committee there were concerns about some problems in the processing of work permits. And in that regard the immigration committee actually loaned two people from the private sector to help out because of a temporary backlog created by long term residents applications and everything else such as the new passports. There was a strain on the infrastructure of immigration and we had people there for a period of time.

Now what we are trying to concentrate on is to really determine what the policies are to support the new immigration requirements.

So there again it is a working committee, and there again on that working committee we had the chairman of the chamber, a representative of the Association of Bermuda International Companies, Bermuda Employers Council and Bermuda International Business Association among others. And it was not only IBF members and you try and bring together expertise.

The way we are trying to approach that is we are bringing together all of these members and groups and saying to them can you please give us a list of your burning questions regarding the new work permit restrictions.

Probably, what we will do - and I guess here - is get a group of human resources professionals together here with these questions and with immigration and try and actually develop the answers to the question to form part of the policy... so we take out some of the guessing that is currently going on. So that is our objective.

Has Immigration agreed to this?

Yes. It is all in process. The minister and his senior staff. On the committee from the Government perspective we have Terry Lister, (Robert) Horton, Rozzy Azhar and Martin Brewer.

And as I said or the chairman or the deputy representatives of the major groups such as ABIC, BIBA... so again the intent there is that when that has all been put together, you then end up reporting back to the main IBF committee and then have discussions at IBF level.

How are the work permit discussions going?

We have only really just started... The first job we had was trying to help them through their back log. We have taken the first step has been to get from all the business organisations there burning questions so we are that stage in the process, which is weeks off. Our next step would be to appoint a group to go through each of those questions and get answers from immigration for those questions. We are still at too early a stage for me to comment on you know how the process going, but certainly we have met with enthusiastic support from immigration in how we have depicted how the process may work going forward.

Is this not closing the door after the horse has bolted? Shouldn't this have been done in 2001?

I think was what happened in 2001 was you had an agreement in principal. It is a bit like doing a contract so you would start off with agreement in principal, and then you would start negotiating the detail. And that is where we are, we are negotiating the detail.

As far as Minister Lister is concerned, this is not agreement in principal but this is what immigration law states now.

Well the immigration law does state certain things, but it is not specific enough. For example, if you have a key employee, are you basing a key employee on a person? Or are you basing it on positions. There is nothing in immigration law that states that. So what we need to do is see where we have taken the law. We are now trying to determine how the policy around that law will work in a way that it ensures to enable international business to flourish in Bermuda, which is what the real issue is. You have this issue whereby obviously you put Bermudians first, and that is not unique to Bermuda but to many countries, but in doing that you also want to ensure that it works for business, and that is the tricky part that we have started to work on.

How long take will it take? Until 2007?

I would be hopeful that we will have gone a long way down the road in six months, probably a year. But in six months I think we will have got a lot of it out of the way. Because if we can get the most burning questions dealt with and you get an active sub committee working on them then I would hope you would get a greater understanding and a greater participation once those kinds of things get open to debate..

Will it be public or behind closed doors?I think that is really up to the Minister. But I don't think he is going to take it back to town hall meeting type stuff. I think what we are talking about here is more the business people who sit down with the Minster and say now, OK we understand now the intent, how can we make it work and still keep our business community thriving, so it is the writing of the detail.

Has there been any mention about the employers - say Brian O'Hara, he is an employee of XL, but he is actually an employer.

He is CEO of XL and as CEO is your question do you consider him a key employee, personally I certainly do, but I think that is the type of thing that needs to be in some way...

So is he an employer and not an employee...?

No he is an employee of XL. So the question is XL a good corporate citizen, which is how I understand it, if they are a good corporate citizen that will ensure that they get treated administratively easier than if someone didn't have that status. Then the questions arise about how many key employees does XL have and the interesting question for me is, XL is headquartered in Bermuda, and I would expect, and this is my personal opinion, that anyone who has their headquarters in Bermuda, would have more key employees in fact here than someone who was not headquartered here. You would expect the main VPs to be here, you'd expect the head legal people to be here, so those in most organisations would be considered to be key.

What about AIG who are not headquartered here, but have a very large office?

So then on the AIG side I wouldn't expect the percentage of key to total employees to be as great as it would be for a headquartered company. And that is key, Then you have got the next question which is about scarce employees. Because if the people you are employing are all actuaries and accountants who internationally are scarce. But if you have things like that who are scarce, then again you are in position of what benefits do you give to scarce employees.

And then you give them the flexibility of renewing a six year permit...?

That is why it becomes a complicated issue and you have to go through it...

And if you change jobs, if you change someone's job, do you start again?

There are all the types of questions I am expecting to come out of our request of "what questions do you have". They are all excellent questions, we just don't have answers for them yet. And again that is not unexpected as we have only just started the process. Anybody who wants to be at the end of the race as opposed to the beginning...

And it will not matter who wins the election?

This is a Bermuda issue, it is not a party issue. The vibrancy of international business has been well reported, the importance of international business to the economy is fully understood by everybody. Now it is a question of let us get down into the detail to make sure we can meet our twin objectives which is to provide Bermudians with the best opportunities that we can provide and at the same time ensure that we have a vibrant international business community here and I think it is very possible to do that, but it is going to be hard.

International business has a lot of clout, and money spins Bermuda - the local businesses will argue will also argue they also need as many work permits but they are not going to have such a big voice.

I disagree with that. That is why we have the chairman of the Chamber (of Commerce) is on the committee, that is why we have the chairman of the BHA (Bermuda Hotel Association) on the committee and we have a rep of BEC (Bermuda Employers' Council) so I am not sure that there is not any business that would not be represented under one of those umbrellas.

So you are working this out for everybody and not just international business?

That is correct. That is partly the way the IBF is going as well, we are saying that it should be more representative of the economy. But there is no doubt about it, if you are a business person at the end of the day and you do look at where your business contributions come from, so I do think that those who perhaps question that international business has too great a voice I think you have the size of voice that you provide benefit to the community and economy to. I think it would be unrealistic to see it any other way.

Is there not a question that the IBF is becoming very powerful?

At the end of the day the IBF is going to be powerful in one respect ... it (that question) concocts that power will be misused.. if you have got the leaders of the business community meeting with Government and trying to enact what we have always said is one of the strengths of Bermuda which is this partnership between the two, that is a pretty powerful concoction, full stop. Right? I don't think it implies anything negative. I think it is good that the business community and Government will spare the time to do all of this.

I suppose what I am asking about is accountability. If these meetings are held behind closed doors, and to a certain degree I understand they have to be to thrash out these problems, but is it really in the public interest to do it so behind closed doors?

I don't think it is going to be "so" behind closed doors, because at the end of the day these problems are going to be thrashed out as best as they can be thrashed out, and obviously everybody has a different spin on each of these problems. So then when you come to the answers that are being proposed, I would see those would have to go back to the chamber the BEC, and whoever else for those memberships to come back and in that process my guess will be that people will not like everything it is just natural. Lets say ABIC members don't like certain things, but the other organisations do because they are Bermudian and ABIC is non-Bermudian, then you know it is up to potentially ABIC then for that little area that is not agreed in general terms to raise their concerns with government separately. This committee can only deal with the generic agreed areas. So there will be areas going backwards and forwards, it is going to be an interactive process, it cannot be a few people sitting behind a closed door, saying here is a question, here is an answer, take it or leave it.

Anything else you would like to say?

IBF is a bit of umbrella org, it is a bit of a forum for discussion, its an area where Government can raise certain concerns that come to Government from other governments or from other organisations like the OECD. And it gives everybody the opportunity to discuss these things. At the end of the day were there is Government policy or legislation involved, it is up to Government to determine what is right and take the process further.