Dear Editor,
All are involved and all will be consumed, if we fail to act. Having learnt of the Chinese, with the Guyana Government’s approval, building the Marriott Hotel without local workers; the government giving away our finite broadcasting spectrum to the Chinese as locals are denied same; and the Chinese building a GPL substation again absent local labour, as a people we must stop, think and act.
With high unemployment, underemployment, and approximately 85 per cent of university graduates forced to migrate for job opportunities, why is the government being allowed to import labour? Why are the taxes of Guyanese going to the development of another country and their workers? Why is the government selling out the people? With employment crises in the sugar and bauxite belts, on the coastland, and in the hinterland, only a heartless government would ignore the right of its citizens to work and give preference to foreigners. It is hoped that PPP supporters are seeing how their votes are being misused as they continue to struggle to eke out a daily living and keep the bandits from robbing them.
And if the government wants us to believe that the Chinese are more efficient workers and superior at construction, Guyanese only have to remember the badly constructed Skeldon Sugar Factory, which cost the taxpayers millions of US dollars but is still to achieve optimal performance. The use of Chinese labour and giving away our broadcasting spectrum makes no sense when the prevailing factors are examined. There is 1) a ready and willing local labour pool; 2) a finite broadcasting spectrum; and 3) training available to equip locals with needed skills. In addition, the people’s tax dollars are being spent on these projects. The Minister of Labour, Dr Nanda Gopaul, talked about the skills-set presently required in the construction of Marriott, which he thinks Guyanese do not possess. Even while his argument is untrue since the present jobs are of the unskilled and semi-skilled kind and can be readily available from Guyanese, the question he needs to answer is how can technology transfer be possible when the government has deliberately manufactured a story of language barrier and kept away local labour thereby preventing any effort at technology transfer.
Guyana badly needs leadership and it is hoped the opposition, which has the numerical majority can take up the mantle, supported by the Bar Association, trade unions, religious organisations, human rights groups, the private sector, media, other civil society groups as well as citizens as a whole. What the PPP is doing is morally reprehensible and it must end. The question should also be asked, what PPP labour leaders, Komal Chand, Kenneth Joseph and Carvil Duncan, as well as their unions, have to say about this matter? How are they justifying this attack on Guyanese workers to their membership? What satisfactory explanations are they giving to workers about the PPP using their tax dollars and giving jobs to foreigners when these workers have families, neighbours and friends who badly need jobs?
President Ramotar once said the PPP is carrying out Dr Cheddi Jagan’s vision. It would be interesting to hear from Dr Joey Jagan and other guardians of the Jagan legacy, if the new practice of hiring foreigners to do work Guyanese are capable of, was part of the vision of Dr Jagan and was incorporated into the party’s philosophy. For the first time in independent Guyana there are political leaders who don’t care about the people, do not know what to do, or simply don’t care.
Yours faithfully,
M A Bacchus
