An Ottawa company says it's worried about losing a prized Bangladeshi employee to international competitors after federal immigration officials told him they need to catch up on applications submitted five years ago before looking at his 2005 request.

Arif Mohiuddin has been running World Bank projects in Nigeria and Sierra Leone since being hired four years ago by transport services company CPCS Transcom Ltd., said Carolyn Mackenzie, vice-president of marketing.

Arif Mohiuddin has been leading World Bank projects in Nigeria and Sierra Leone for Canada's CPCS Transcom Ltd.
(CBC)

"He's become a really important part of our team and we really don't want to lose him," Mackenzie told CBC's Ottawa Morning on Monday, adding that her firm is competing for talent with companies around the world.

"He has proven himself to be an excellent employee in all respects," she said in an earlier interview. "I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say he's exactly the kind of person that our country needs."

Mohiuddin, who is not yet 30, has been living out of hotel rooms in Nigeria and Canada.

"I really want a home," he told CBC News. "It's really important to me to have the immigration done as soon as possible. Without the immigration, I cannot really make investments there [in Canada.]"

CBCNews.ca contacted Citizenship and Immigration Canada about Mohiuddin's case, but the department had not responded by 2:00 p.m. ET.

Carolyn Mackenzie, vice-president of marketing for CPCS Transcom, said Arif Mohiuddin is exactly the kind of person Canada needs.
(CBC)

The department announced last week that it wants to attract up to 265,000 immigrants in 2008, the largest increase in the past 15 years. But it appears that even sought-after skilled workers face some administrative barriers.

Mohiuddin said he applied to come to Canada in 2005 through the Canadian embassy in Ghana, which processes applications from West Africa, where he lives. According to Mackenzie, it took four months just to get a file number.

Mohiuddin said he recently spoke to embassy officials about the application.

"They mentioned to me that they're still reviewing the files from 2002," he said, "which leads me to believe that it may take another three to five years for my immigration to process."

Mackenzie said she fears another employer will offer Mohiuddin a permanent job and a quicker immigration process before his application goes through.

"For him, it's a personal issue; for us, it's a corporate issue. We need to be able to attract people like Arif to our business to help us think about the future as well," she said.

"As it is, I'm sympathetic to the number of applications that we're dealing with, but the system is clearly broken."