Commonwealth electoral provision is an Ass & a Shackle..

[Willi]

Yuh realize that there are many White people from dem African countries with no other passports but African?? Dem quailfied to be Jam PM after 1 year residency.

Also, why is Angola with a similar history NOT qualified when all the difference is that dem Guvvamant dont jine the Cwealth club?

What yuh prejudiced gainsz Angolans? Leggo di Angolans! LoL

[ReggaeMike]

African???

Man ah wha duh yuh??

Loook how many ex-colonial ENGLISH speaking African countries out deh and I have no problem wid dem. Yuh hear mi seh anything bout Nigeria, RSA, Ghana, Sierra Leaone, Kenya,Tanzania, etc?

Mozambique is a former PORTUGUESE colony and dem fuss language is NOT english and they dont have an anglicized culture in any way...different govt structure and legal structure, etc.

Is it not clear now WHY I bring them up? If Costa Rica guh jine di CWealth, it would be the SAME argument.

Follow argument and leggo offa di hangups.

I am following your argument, but I'm simply pointing out that your argument might be based off subconscious discrimination against Mozambicans and Africans in general. I apologize if it wasn't but this is not the first time someone has brought up the Mozambique example to me and the previous times it was done so it was quite clear that the persons doing so (who were black Jamaicans themselves) were of the opinion that since the hypothetical person in question is from Mozambique then they cannot be any good.

Mozambique is a former PORTUGUESE colony and dem fuss language is NOT english and they dont have an anglicized culture in any way...different govt structure and legal structure, etc.

And we are assuming that a Mozambican who has resided in Jamaica for an entire year gets by on Portuguese alone? If he doesn't speak English well enough to get by how on earth would he get permanent residency, let alone get anyone to vote for him? And if he speaks English well enough, why the assumption that he wouldn't have been anglicized in some way? Especially if he is residing in Jamaica and chooses to live in Jamaica? How many Mozambicans are just going to come and live in Jamaica because it was the first place their fingers landed on when they spun a globe? People don't come to Jamaica randomly, so any person from Mozambique for instance is not going to be some random individual from that country.

[ReggaeMike]

Loook how many ex-colonial ENGLISH speaking African countries out deh and I have no problem wid dem. Yuh hear mi seh anything bout Nigeria, RSA, Ghana, Sierra Leaone, Kenya,Tanzania, etc?

And what's wrong with these countries? Nigeria has scammers, but how is that any different from Jamaica? South Africa is the only African country in the G20 and in BRICS so they must be doing something right.

As for Ghana...well they seem to be so trustworthy when it comes to the rule of law that the United States allowed the extradition of an American citizen to Ghana to face drug smuggling charges (of all the irony):

http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=05ACCRA791

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 ACCRA 002554 ......................


TAGS: SNAR [Narcotics], GH [Ghana], Trafficking
SUBJECT: 2005-2006 INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL STRATEGY
REPORT, PART I DRUGS AND CHEMICAL CONTROL DIVERSION CONTROL
- GHANA

REF: STATE 209558

I. Summary

Ghana has taken steps to combat illicit trafficking of
narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances and has mounted
major efforts against drug abuse. It has active enforcement,
treatment, and rehabilitation programs; however, lack of
resources remains a problem and suspected drug trafficking
by a Member of Parliament surfaced this year. Ghana-U.S.
law enforcement coordination strengthened in 2005.
Interagency coordination among Ghana's law enforcement,
however, remained a challenge and attempts to establish an
anti-corruption unit at the Customs, Excise & Preventive
Service were stalled. Ghana is a party to the 1988 UN Drug
Convention.

II. Status of Country

Ghana is increasingly a transit point for illegal drugs,
particularly cocaine from South America and heroin from
Southeast and Southwest Asia. Europe remains the major
destination................

III. Country Actions Against Drugs in 2004
POLICY INITIATIVES: The Narcotics Control Board (NCB)
coordinates government efforts involving counternarcotics
activities. These activities include enforcement and
control, educ............

ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Figures for 2005 show an 11 percent
increase in narcotics arrests (782 for January through
September 2005 compared to 705 for the same period in 2004).
More than 80 percent of these arrests are for cannabis.
Despite the upward trend in arrests, the amount of cocaine
seized remained steady while that of heroin dropped to one
tenth of its 2004 level. The NCB said narcotics rings find
trafficking cocaine to Europe easier and more profitable
than obtaining heroin from the Far East and trafficking it
to the U.S. The Ghana Police Service's campaign to destroy
cannabis farms in the Upper East and Eastern Regions
accounted for a nearly 18-fold increase in seizures in 2005.
Overall, 2005 saw the highest number of drug trafficking
arrests on record. The NCB and other law enforcement
agencies continued their successful cooperation with U.S.
law enforcement agencies in 2005, sharing information, as
well as extraditing American citizen Carmella Warren, who
had previously escaped imprisonment in Ghana.

[ReggaeMike]

so we are clear what do you think my point is?

And a short term expat work permit? Is that any desire for PERMANENT residency?

Are both of you REALLY saying that applying for TOURIST visa is any indication of a desire for permanent residency?

Willi, I know you are smarter than that, so please don't talk about expat work permit when Gamma clearly indicated he was talking about tourist visas. I know you know and I know that Gamma knows that work permits and tourist visas are entirely different. Just because they both allow you to remain in the country in question doesn't mean they should be considered in any way related.

For instance I can see a job posting in.....say...Lilliput (nice fictional country okay) and after making enquires I could apply for the job even though I've never set foot in the country before. Once the prospective employer asks the Lilliputian ministry of labour for a work permit on my behalf or once I apply directly to that ministry of labour it should be on the onus of the employer to prove that no qualified natives applied despite prominent advertising or that no natives are actually qualified for the job. Then and only then should my work permit be approved. Once I get approved with the work permit I would probably get a WORK VISA (not a tourist visa - see here for example: http://www.jhcuk.com/reqforworkinja.htm) and will be allowed into Lilliput to work. Only after working, paying taxes and generally contributing to society for a while will I even be able to apply for permanent residency. Should I get permanent residency I could easily do so without ever once applying for or receiving a tourist visa.

So please, stop acting as though tourist visas and permanent residency are related. They are NOT. There is no link between the two as you cannot use a tourist visa to get a work visa, nor can you every stay long enough on a tourist visa to apply for permanent residency. And as I pointed out before even if you do not need a tourist visa, tourists are restricted in how long they can stay by customs and immigration regulations (if tourists had unrestricted stay then immigration officials would never stamp their passport with the amount of days they can stay, it would be unnecessary). The normal limit is about 6 months. Also it is a requirement for tourists to possess a return ticket or an onward ticket out of the country as further proof that they don't intend stay permanently.

If either of you would like to show me how one can get permanent residency from a tourist visa without either committing immigration fraud or having the tourist visa cancelled in place of another visa for which a tourist visa was never a requirement then please do so.


Just so we are clear Gamma, here is your point again:

BUT how the jamaican going to vote in the UK as a commonwelath citizen if him cya'an get a visa fi guh UK WHEN the converse is that a UK citizen does not need a visa to go to jamaica to be eligible to hold office..

Now please tell me which UK citizen you know can come and work in Jamaica without a visa. Because if you know any then they obviously are doing so illegally as the Jamaican High Commission in the UK has a whole webpage devoted to work visas: http://www.jhcuk.com/reqforworkinja.htm

So in referring to a UK citizen not needing a visa to go to jamaica you can only be referring to tourist visas and as I've attempted to explain, NO tourist will ever be eligible to hold office. A tourist is a visitor, not a resident. The Constitution requires you to be a resident. So as I said, your point is clearly way off and misguided.

[ReggaeMike]

Yuh realize that there are many White people from dem African countries with no other passports but African?? Dem quailfied to be Jam PM after 1 year residency.

So what do white people have to do with it? And how do you think they will get 1 year residency in Jamaica unless they have a job first (and presumably pay taxes)? You can't believe that they need only be tourists as immigration officials don't stamp "unlimited" as the number of days in a passport for someone visiting as a tourist (at least I've never heard of it, if you have examples, please share). They usually stamp a given set of days such as 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 180 days.....

Also, why is Angola with a similar history NOT qualified when all the difference is that dem Guvvamant dont jine the Cwealth club?

What yuh prejudiced gainsz Angolans? Leggo di Angolans! LoL

Hmm....I don't recall Angola coordinating with its Commonwealth neighbours against South Africa. I remember them fighting against South Africa separately (with the Cubans), but evidently the fact that Angola was not sponsored for membership by its Commonwealth neighbours (probably for the reason that there was never the kind of coordination experienced with Mozambique) isn't hint enough for some people that even Angola's African neighbours see a difference there.

[Gamma]

reggaemike, i can see that you mean well. it is much easier for a uk person to come to jamaica and look a job and change their status than the converse. to begin with jamaicans NEED a visa to get to the UK the converse is not true ... same with canada. we are already on the back foot.

the point i was making is simply that the balance is against us jamaicans from the get go, e.g. look how many of our footballers have been unable to get a work permit in the UK. it also makes it inconvenient, in that we have to make sure we have all these visas ahead of time in order to be able to travel at short notice while again, a canadian can get up and travel to JA whenever they like without having to get or maintain a visa....

[ReggaeMike]

reggaemike, i can see that you mean well. it is much easier for a uk person to come to jamaica and look a job and change their status than the converse. to begin with jamaicans NEED a visa to get to the UK the converse is not true ... same with canada. we are already on the back foot.

Gamma. As I've explained. UK citizens and Canadian citizens also NEED a visa to get a job in Jamaica. Additionally I don't need to go to Britain to know there are jobs available. In fact it is easier to find a job in Britain than Jamaica. In Britain a lot of jobs are advertised online and you can buy The Times in Jamaica (at least I know you could because I've seen it in some pharmacies). For a Briton to find a job in Jamaica they would need to come her first (which costs money) to look around and then go back home and apply. Which is easier and cheaper: paying for the Blackberry internet service and buying The Times for maybe a J$1,000-2,000 in total for a month or spending over J$50,000 just to buy a plane ticket to come to Jamaica to MAYBE look for a job? Because a lot of jobs in Jamaica are not advertised online and The Gleaner and Observer are not widely circulated in Britain. Additionally jobs are advertised more openly in Britain than Jamaica (for example note that in Britain it is just normal procedure to give full particulars for a job including name of the employer, address, how much you will be paid, if the pay grade is negotiable, etc. In Jamaica I've glimpsed ads in the Careers section of the paper where a lot of this stuff is absent, particularly information on pay and at times the name of the employer).

Anybody who needs to visit a country in order to find a job is not in need of a job in the first place.

Most of those who would come to Jamaica to work from Britain or Canada are already working in a company with connections in Jamaica (so maybe an investment firm or bank or something) and the same would apply in reverse (at least I've known a few persons who have gone to work in Canada by first working in a Canadian company and then getting a transfer). Very few, if any will simply be coming to Jamaica on a tourist visa and finding work in a little Chinese shop on the corner.

I'm also pretty sure that more Jamaicans go to (and are able to) find work in Britain and Canada than vice versa. I would also be willing to bet that in proportion to population, Britain and Canada have more Jamaicans as expat workers relative to their total population than Jamaica has expat British and Canadian workers relative to its total population.

the point i was making is simply that the balance is against us jamaicans from the get go,

And I've been trying to show that it has nothing to do with that. The simple and clear facts are that thousands of Jamaicans currently reside in Britain and are accorded the right to vote and stand for election. The British Office of National Statistics estimate is that in 2010 there were 150,000 people in the UK who were Jamaican-born (and this is just the Jamaican-born set, the numbers of persons either born in Jamaica or descended from someone born in Jamaica is estimated at over 800,000). And before anybody brings up the diaspora in America, let's remember that 150,000 Jamaican-born persons out a UK population represents 0.2% of the population whereas the 500,000+ Jamaican-born persons out a US population of 312,000,000 represents about 0.15% of the population. Similarly as a percentage, Jamaican-born and Jamaican-descended persons make up a larger percentage of the UK population than the US population.

Conversely to get even 0.2% of the Jamaican population to be born in the UK (and be Britons, not just born in the UK to Jamaican-born parents) we would need to have...5,690 Britons who were born in Britain living and working in Jamaica. I'm doubt we have nearly that many non-Jamaicans living in Jamaica in total let alone coming from any one country.

So the balance seems to be very much in our favour. It would be even more so had the Jamaican governments over the years been serious about drug traffickers and gangsters ruining our reputation (remember that even after other countries began slapping visas on Jamaicans left, right and centre the UK didn't do so until 2003). But they didn't and still aren't, hence we see countries still introducing visas for Jamaicans even as tourists (Costa Rica did it relatively recently) and I'm sure we will see more of it in the future. To rectify this we need our governments to be serious. Maybe not as serious as say Singapore which has an automatic death sentence for drug smugglers (and they make it clear for anyone visiting their country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Si...ationCard.png), but perhaps by revoking passports as I've suggested in the past.

e.g. look how many of our footballers have been unable to get a work permit in the UK.

How much of that is related to UK rules regarding the ranking of the home country in international football standings?

I'm pretty sure none of our footballers who were rejected were unable to get a work permit because of Britain requiring tourist visas. They want to go their to work, not visit. A tourist visa wouldn't even come into the picture.

In fact here are the relevant rules:

http://www.internationalworkpermits....k-permits.html

Criteria

Work permits will be issued to international players of the highest calibre who are able to make a significant contribution in footballing terms to the development of the United Kingdom game at the highest level (i.e. clubs competing in the Premier Leagues and Football Leagues in England and Scotland, the Welsh Premier League and the Irish Premier League in Northern Ireland).

Initial applications

To be eligible for a work permit:

a player must have played for his country in at least 75% of its competitive 'A' team matches he was available for selection, during the two years preceding the date of the application; and
the player's country must be at or above 70th place in the official FIFA world rankings when averaged over the two years preceding the date of the application.
Competitive matches

The definition of a competitive 'A' team international match is a:

World Cup Finals game;
World Cup Qualifying group game; and
Football Association confederation tournament game, for example:
The FIFA Confederations Cup;
Tthe UEFA European Championships and Qualifiers;
The African Cup of Nations and Qualifiers;
The Asia Nations Cup and Qualifiers;
The CONCACAF Gold Cup;
The CONCACAF The Copa Caribe;
The CONMEBOL Copa America;
The OFC Nations Cup and
The UNCAF Nations Cup

None of that seems to be related to requiring a tourist visa in anyway way and I'm sure those rules meant that before 2003 when Britain required visas Jamaican footballers were having problems getting work permits because they hadn't played enough top level games or because Jamaica's average rank was below 70 for two years in a row.

[ReggaeMike]

it also makes it inconvenient, in that we have to make sure we have all these visas ahead of time in order to be able to travel at short notice while again, a canadian can get up and travel to JA whenever they like without having to get or maintain a visa....

An inconvenience which hasn't stopped far more Jamaicans from still living in Britain proportionally or totally than Britons living in Jamaica.

I've been pointing out that there is little point mixing up casual travel with the right to vote and stand for election. You and I can get elected to the British parliament as long as we have jobs in Britain. We would not get elected as tourist and no tourist could ever get elected in Jamaica since they wouldn't (and couldn't) be here long enough.

[Gamma]

you've said a lot, most of which is neither here nor there in respect of the narrow issue which is quite simply, given visa requirements, the movement of jamaicans to the UK is more strident than vice versa and as a starting point that is an imbalance which ought not to exist amongst commonweath nations. that is my most simplistic of points. there is no parity ....

Anybody who needs to visit a country in order to find a job is not in need of a job in the first place. completely reckless statement as I know of several instances where this was the case.

[Willi]

Simple, they could be married to a Jakan. It could also be a marriage of convenience. There are many parameters yuh not thinking of. A conveniently married Mozambican who barely speaks English, but live in Jam for one year is eligible to be PM. Heck, he could have been say a Russian born who somehow got Moz. citizenship first...

I do indeed have a Moz. pal married to a Jakan and him love Jamaica like cook food, despite never being resident here. One day he is going to convince his wife (who is Jakan by parent, not by birth!).

The simple issue is that to sit in parliament, one should be Jamaican, whether naturalized or not. MY OPINION.

Peopel come to Jam for many reasons...nuff Chinese for example come here for a 2-3 year stay and waps, dem off to Canada or the US.

Finally, Canada give us a very warm time to enter their country and to sit in parliament, or vote, you must be Canadian fuss. Most Cwealth countries dont give us the electoral privileges like the UK des. I am sure you cant up and move to Mozambique and after a year enter dem Govt as a Jakan citizen!

[Willi]

Huh?

Yuh nuh hear mi seh mi didnt have any problems with them?

They are in a different category to Moz and possibly Vanuatu.

Besides, all ah dem country have white/ Middle Eastern and Indian ethnic citizens!

[Willi]

Is you bring up colour!!!!!

Coordinated nuh mean nutten. Namibia coordinate too.

[Willi]

Yuh keep moving the goalpost.

All yuh need fi get the residency is a convenient marriage! Look how many Russians used to do it to avoid future extradition.

Ah dat mi a talk bout. Yubh not looking at every angle.

Yuh and Gamma ah talk bout tourist visa and you ah try conflate me and my argument inna dat deh argument.

In any case, Gamma is correct. Once yuh have free access, you can poke around and change yuh status. With the visa wall, dollyhouse mash up!

[Willi]

Yuh ah argue offa theory.

I know the practical. I have lived it over here. I have relatives in the UK Guvvament.

[ReggaeMike]

you've said a lot, most of which is neither here nor there in respect of the narrow issue which is quite simply,

Ridiculous. I've provided ample information. I just get the feeling you can't be bothered to read it (or you are intentionally ignoring it) otherwise there is no way you could claim it is "neither here nor there". I've already outlined the procedures by which one gets the permanent residency necessary to be able to vote and stand for election but you (and to a lesser extent Willi) consistently try to confuse the issue with tourist visas. I've also provided figures showing that despite the claim of it being harder and unfair for Jamaicans there are thousands of Jamaicans in the UK whereas oddly we don't have thousands of Brits running around the island.

given visa requirements, the movement of jamaicans to the UK is more strident than vice versa and as a starting point that is an imbalance which ought not to exist amongst commonweath nations. that is my most simplistic of points. there is no parity ....

Well I had been saying that I'm sure you know the difference between a tourist visa and work one, but now I'm not so sure.

Anybody who needs to visit a country in order to find a job is not in need of a job in the first place. completely reckless statement as I know of several instances where this was the case.

Reckless?

So you are saying you know people who would spend at least J$100,000 in one go to visit a country and that they NEED to find a job? If they need a job, where did they get all that money from in the first place?

I'm sure you are talking about persons who already had a job and found a better one in the UK or elsewhere after visiting the UK. That however is not what I said. I said anybody who NEEDS to visit in a country in order to find a job is not in NEED of a job in the first place. I didn't say people who want a job might not spend the plane fare and maybe spring for accommodations just to visit a country and in the process look for jobs.