Dozens of disillusioned Bahamas Customs personnel gathered for a demonstration outside the department’s headquarters earlier this week, voicing deep-seated anger over years of being consistently passed over for senior promotions, while management fills coveted leadership roles with recently retired veteran staff brought back on short-term contracts.
The Bahamas Customs, Immigration and Allied Workers Union has documented 15 retired officers who have been rehired by the agency, 13 of whom currently hold top-tier positions spanning deputy comptroller, assistant comptroller, and superintendent roles, effectively blocking career advancement paths for hundreds of serving staff who have invested decades in the department.
Leading the protest was 38-year customs veteran Superintendent Livingstone Ferguson, who holds an associate degree in public administration, bachelor’s and master’s degrees in finance, and is on track to earn a law degree from the University of The Bahamas next year. Ferguson emphasized that dozens of his peers hold equivalent or higher advanced qualifications, yet management has repeatedly dismissed their eligibility for upward mobility. “We are deeply disappointed that leadership has decided we are not worthy of growing within the organization, and that we are meant to stay stuck in our current roles indefinitely. Today we are making it clear enough is enough,” he stated.
Ten-year veteran Chief Customs Revenue Officer Kevin McKenzie shared his own experience of receiving two formal supersession notices from Customs Comptroller Ralph Munroe, informing him that less junior staff would be promoted ahead of him. He submitted a formal written request for justification for the decision, but never received a response. McKenzie warned that many of the rehired retired officers would only vacate their senior posts due to death, creating a permanent barrier for younger staff hoping to advance.
20-year veteran Customs Officer Winifred Lynden added that multiple current serving officers who have been overlooked for promotions hold stronger academic and professional credentials than the retired staff being brought back on contract, and it is demoralizing to be placed under the authority of people who left the department years earlier. She also revealed that several currently serving assistant comptrollers have had their core duties, powers and responsibilities stripped entirely to make space for the returning contracted retirees, forcing staff who waited decades for leadership opportunities to step aside.
30-year veteran Chief Customs Officer Alma Poitier-Sands noted that every dedicated, long-serving officer deserves a fair shot at career progression, and that the department’s current hiring practices have left the entire rank and file increasingly burnt out and disillusioned.
Ferguson clarified that the protesting officers do not oppose retired staff returning temporarily to provide mentorship or short-term support for high-priority projects, but strongly object to them occupying permanent senior line roles that fully qualified current staff are fully capable of performing. This practice, he explained, has created a systemic promotion bottleneck across every tier of the department: if 12 assistant comptroller positions are permanently filled by rehired retirees, 12 qualified superintendents are blocked from advancing, which in turn blocks an entire cohort of lower-ranking officers from moving up the career ladder.
He added that staff had repeatedly attempted to resolve these concerns through internal channels before resorting to public demonstration, and are not demanding special treatment — only a fair, transparent process that gives them the opportunity to prove they can lead the department effectively.
Deron Brooks, president of the Bahamas Customs, Immigration and Allied Workers Union, confirmed that the union has previously pressured Comptroller Munroe to roll out a formal, equitable succession plan and increase promotion volumes, noting that current promotion rates are wildly disproportionate to the department’s overall headcount. While a small number of promotions have been issued recently, Brooks stated they are far too few and moving at a glacial pace to resolve the systemic backlog.
This long-running dispute first escalated in 2024, when Brooks warned the union was prepared to pursue legal action over the government’s widespread practice of rehiring retired public servants on contract, pointing to a 2021 Supreme Court ruling the union won that deemed the government’s contractual appointment of retired Immigration officers unlawful. At the time, Comptroller Munroe defended the practice, arguing that rehired retired staff brought irreplaceable institutional knowledge and experience that benefited the department.
Bahamas Trades Union Congress President Obie Ferguson has formally thrown his full support behind the protesting customs officers, warning that no public servant should ever be passed over for promotion in favour of candidates selected for partisan political reasons. He emphasized that all public service appointment and promotion protocols are legally binding, and a recent Court of Appeal ruling mandates that these procedures must be followed strictly to the letter of the law. “No administrative opinion overrides the written law, and it must be followed exactly as it is stated,” he affirmed.
Ferguson noted that customs and immigration officers are protected by explicit constitutional rights, employment contracts, and industrial bargaining agreements that the government is legally obligated to uphold, and cited recent favourable court precedents for public sector workers in Jamaica, Barbados and St. Lucia to argue that Bahamian public servants deserve the exact same level of legal protection. He urged the protesting officers to seek broader support from the national trade union movement, noting that this systemic promotion barrier issue threatens the career prospects of public sector workers across every government department, not just Customs.
Union says rehired retirees block career advancement
