Officials from the Environmental Health Department are inspecting migrant worker accommodations across Barbados and have identified compliance issues at some of the construction sites, according to Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and Wellness Davidson Ishmael.
He said the ministry’s authority to conduct these checks stemmed from existing legislation.
“It’s actually a regulation under the Health Services Act that speaks to lodging houses and barracks,” Ishmael said in relation to the barrack licence.
“That piece of legislation gives us the authority not only to license, but to inspect places where persons are housed and lodged.”
The current construction boom, particularly in the hotel sector, has led to an influx of migrant labourers from countries including China, India, Spain, Colombia and Cuba, resulting in a heightened need for these inspections.
While the recent discovery of substandard living conditions at a JADA construction facility drew significant public attention, Ishmael emphasised that monitoring these sites was standard, yearround procedure.
“The JADA situation came up recently and came to the media’s attention, but the environmental health officers across the various catchments have always been utilising this particular piece of legislation to undertake the work that is required,” he noted.
“They have inspected several lodging houses, several spaces that can be considered barracks and that has been ongoing work.”
He acknowledged that because the ministry does not automatically know the location of every housing site, they rely on a combination of routine patrols and public tips.
“We don’t know about every single site that has been set up as a lodging house or a barrack, so sometimes things do come to our attention either by complaints or by the media. But generally speaking, because the environmental health officers and the inspectors are on the ground in various catchment areas, they usually come across these sites and they then guide the persons through the process of becoming compliant with the law.”
Regarding the specific situation at JADA, the minister confirmed that remedial work was under way.
“The environmental health team have gone in and they have done their inspections. They have advised on what areas need to be remediated and with that work being ongoing, they’ve been given a certain amount of time to be able to become compliant,” he stated.
Continuous oversight
“We will continue through the environmental health officers to work with [the company] to ensure that everybody is safe and sound and everything is as it should be.”
Ishmael declined to provide a specific number of sites inspected recently, reiterating that the discovery of issues at other locations was not a new development.
“This is something that is ongoing all year round, so this is not something that is new to us. It’s not because of the JADA incident that things are being done,” he stressed.
“There are other sites that have been inspected even long before the JADA incident and they are currently going through the process of addressing some of the issues that have been identified with their own facilities.”
To further strengthen oversight, he added, the ministry has initiated a proactive collaboration with the Ministry of Labour.
“We have asked for the Ministry of Labour to provide us with any information that they have on all sites where migrant workers may be. With that information we will check and, of course, crossreference and see where we may have already done inspections and where we have not done inspections.
“We will then go out and facilitate inspections of those sites and work with the various site managers and companies to see if we can get them to be as compliant and fall in line with the regulations under the Health Services Act in the shortest possible time.”
Ishmael said safeguarding the living conditions of all residents remained an important, long-standing function of his ministry.
“This is ongoing work . . . . I think that regulation has been on the books for many years and the environmental health team have been using it quite effectively to make sure that we have good living conditions for visitors, for migrant workers and for all of our citizens wherever it is required.” (MB)