President Donald Ramotar says the issues surrounding Chinese workers who are constructing the Marriott Hotel in Guyana are more political in nature rather than a genuine concern for Guyanese, the Government Information Agency (GINA) said in a press release.
Ramotar was at the time responding to questions during a press conference at the Miami Hilton on Saturday.
Ramotar stopped there on his way to Haiti for a Caricom heads conference.
He said that a lot of Guyanese are being employed as local contractors supply all the concrete work, security services and many other services that the Chinese contractor needs in building the hotel.
“I think Guyanese have done more construction in the Caribbean than any other group of people so it’s not that we don’t have capable people and so forth as they are saying,” GINA quoted the President as saying.
He repeated the explanations by Atlantic Hotels Inc CEO Winston Brassington saying that the use of the Chinese labour was a cost-saving strategy.
He noted too that while there is not a lack of skilled Guyanese, the demand for their services is very high, “especially in Guyana’s current construction boom.” The President also pointed out that a large number of skilled Guyanese have now been absorbed into the mining sector, which has been growing extensively in recent times.
“A lot of people have been absorbed into the gold industry. For instance, it is very difficult on the coast now to get a heavy-duty operator, a dragline operator; most of them have gone into the interior, because they work for a quarter million or half a million Guyana dollars a month in there. So the economy has been growing and has been absorbing a lot of labour; all the facts are there… The construction sector in Guyana has grown enormously. We are building new roads to the airport; they are also struggling (behind schedule). So in my own view this is more political, than it is real.”
The use of Chinese labour in the ongoing construction of the Marriott prompted a picketing exercise by opposition entities at the site last week.
