Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill has revealed that the Government has permitted the importation of labour to meet the shortage of heavy-duty vehicle drivers.
The minister was at the time speaking at the Multi-Stakeholders Meeting on Guyana’s Labour Needs hosted by the Diaspora Unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre.
Edghill pointed out that due to the shortage of labour in the country, the ministry had no choice but to grant work permits to foreign nationals to work on the Ogle – Eccles Road.
“We are actually importing labour. I could give you one example that might shock all of you. We were left with no choice but to grant work permits for the contractor that is building the Ogle to Eccles Road. Bringing Drivers. Drivers! An elementary job like drivers to drive heavy-duty equipment. I know some people will say ‘What happen, every day I see people driving?’ but right now, they have 60 plus foreign nationals that are here driving for them and I can assure you, through the Ministry of Public Works and through their own advertising they have been hunting to get drivers locally for those trucks.”
The Ogle to Eccles Road is a US$106.3 million dollar project which the Indian company, Ashoka Buildcon, is expected to build and complete by 2024. The four-lane thoroughfare will be built from the intersection of the Ogle Airstrip Road and Rupert Craig Highway (ECD) towards Haags Bosch, Eccles, East Bank Demerara. This, along with many other major projects which are in the pipeline, such as the new Demerara Harbour Bridge, the East Coast Four-Lane Road, the Gas-to-Shore project, the Linden-Lethem Road and many others, Edghill said, “… is just an indication of how the demand for labour is becoming”.
He also pointed out the need for quality labour, one in which the Government is also working on producing. “We need quantities; which means we need more people who are skilled, equipped and trained and that is why we would want to commend, and hope all the Guyanese in the diaspora will understand the vision of giving 20,000 scholarships through the GOAL programme and the expansion of technical vocational training through the Ministry of Education, because we need more people and we need more skilled people”, he said.
