ST JAMES, Jamaica — Tourism Minister, Edmund Bartlett, on Wednesday, declared that there is no room in Jamaica’s tourism industry for partisan politics. He was responding to Monday’s call, from local corruption watchdog group National Integrity Action (NIA), for fair play during the recruitment of 10,000 workers for the global cruise ship industry.

READ: NIA calls for equity, fairness in the recruitment of cruise-line workers

“Tourism doesn’t have politics that way. Our politics is about how to bring more visitors to Jamaica and how to earn more dollars for the country. That’s the politics of tourism,” Bartlett said during a ceremony at the Sangster International Airport to mark the one-millionth stopover visitor to the country for 2022.

He had recently announced a recruitment drive aimed at identifying Jamaicans to fill some of the 90,000 cruise ship jobs available worldwide. The process, he said, would see input from Members of Parliament (MPs) for the southern parishes from which workers will be drawn. MPs’ involvement, Bartlett stressed on Wednesday, should not be interpreted as partisan as these representatives are drawn from both the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP).

“The MPs, they are elected by the people. There are PNP MPs and JLP MPs, they are all the MPs from St Thomas to the northern part of St Elizabeth, I just want to make that point,” he said.

“I just want everybody to appreciate [that] when we decided we wanted to encourage recruitment only from the southern side of Jamaica, as a result… we engaged the members of parliament to help in identifying the people and locations where that recruitment can take place,” he added.

The NIA had made it clear that it had no issue with MPs playing a role in the selection process, saying their involvement was “understandable”. It did suggest, however, that Bartlett add more seats to the table during any discussion on the issue.

“It is understandable that you have asked all MPs on the South Coast (the non-tourism belt) to assist in recommending persons. Additionally, however, I would urge that you invite the Parish Ministers’ fraternal and the Parish Associations of JPs on the South Coast to also recommend persons to the cruise operator recruiters. Such an invitation and engagement would introduce a non-political, non-governmental, civil society component to a recruitment process which, regrettably, in Jamaica has been too often monopolised by politics,” said Monday’s release from the NIA’s Principal Director, Trevor Munroe.

Bartlett did not respond to that suggestion during his remarks on Wednesday.

He did, however, attempt to clarify the role the Tourism Ministry will play in the recruitment drive.

“We’re not recruiting any workers, we don’t recruit. What we’re doing is facilitating access to recruitment in a manner that will protect the stability of the industry. Because if we allow indiscriminate recruitment all over, it will damage the existing stock of workers that is already diminished as a result of the pandemic,” the tourism minister said.

Jamaica, like other countries around the world, is experiencing a shortage of tourism workers. Local stakeholders have repeatedly complained of challenges finding skilled employees who can do jobs that range from plumbing to front of house. Some workers laid off during the novel coronavirus pandemic found jobs in other industries, while others started their own businesses or took jobs abroad. Bartlett has made it clear that every effort will be made to avoid further disruptions to the labour pool during the ongoing push to identify workers for the cruise ship industry. He repeated the point on Wednesday.

“We don’t want people to be taken out from Treasure Beach and from Whitehouse and from Sav, Negril and Lucea and Montego Bay and Falmouth and St Ann and so forth all the way to Portland,” Bartlett said.