Dear Editor,

As was reported in the Kaieteur News on 1/6/07, Buddy’s Hotel is about to be completed and this bodes well for Guyana. However, it was also reported that the owner intends to import hotel workers from India and China.

The mere fact that such an idea is being considered is an affront to the Guyanese public and will show gross ineptitude if the government allows this to occur. Owning a hotel or any other business does not bestow the right to engage in immigration policy, especially when the affected economy is inundated with massive unemployment and under-employment.

Most countries, when faced with a talent shortage advertise in the media for the talent wanted. To date I have not seen where the owners of the hotel made an effort to find the talent needed in the Guyanese press or in the Caribbean media outlets.

Are the owners of the hotel assuming that there is no hotel management talent in Guyana and the Caribbean or are they pre-determined to circumvent the whole Caribbean.

Recently , it was reported that over 80% of all university graduates leave Guyana within two years after graduation. This 80 % does not account for those who did not attend the university but may be high school graduates, meaning they have passed some level of school leaving examination and are ready and available for work.

Guyana has a high unemployment rate and this may be higher if unemployment is defined as those who are actively looking and able to work and excludes those who have given up looking for work. The problem is Guyana’s economy is not growing as fast as the young population leaves school, consequently, there are not enough jobs to absorb these school leavers. Guyana’s economy needs a boost and this is what is expected from the building of this hotel. For the owners to claim that about 150 other jobs would be created is irrelevant when the macro aspects of the economy of Guyana are examined.

Should this nation sit idle and allow foreign workers to supplant Guyanese who are capable of doing any type of hotel work whether it is managerial or pruning trees? Why is it that the two countries chosen are India and China? If this hotel management wanted to be generous and provide jobs for nationals from other countries excluding the Caribbean, why did they not include Africa, Brazil, Suriname, Chile etc? Allowing this sort of employment sourcing depicts an insensitivity and effrontery to the inhabitants of this small nation.

National development is fostered by employment opportunities within and not by the disregard of our national position, a position that desperately needs a massive employment effort.

The qualifications needed to work in hotel management do not require a college degree. This type of employment can be learned with proper training. Why then hire workers from other places, thereby denying Guyanese the privilege of working in their own homeland?

Yours faithfully,

Patrick Barker