The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) has charged that there is discriminatory hiring in the oil and gas industry and that local professionals are being underpaid by as much as 10 to 20 times compared to expatriates.
In its submission to the Local Content Preparatory Commission set up recently by the Ministry of Natural Resources, GHRA highlighted instances of discriminatory hiring practices in the oil industry to the detriment of Guyanese workers.
A release on Saturday from the GHRA said that the submission contends that Guyana’s Local Content Policy should be located within the framework of appropriate human rights, labour and environmental principles to be found in the Guyana Constitution and the relevant international conventions ratified by Guyana. It said that care must be taken to ensure that the beneficiaries of the Local Content policy are not narrowly restricted to the local business community, but also encompass workers and society as a whole.