Dear Editor,
On this matter of giving away our jobs the people are heavily relying on the media to hold the government accountable, because the government wishes it didn’t have to answer to us. It is unfortunate the PPP has sunk to a new low in an effort to wriggle out of accountability for allowing the employment of only foreigners on the Marriott Hotel. The PPP should be asked to provide the law and migrant convention highlighting the sections which allow a government to hire foreign workers in preference to nationals when such jobs were not advertised and the local population was denied priority. Were they asked to do this they would be singing a different tune. Even though the government claims it has a policy to attract skills, the government needs to tell us what skills they are seeking to attract that we do not have.
This government can only think and function best when they cry ‘racism’ and create smokescreens to hide their nefarious actions. It is arrant nonsense on the part of Gail Teixeira and Anand Nandlall to accuse Guyanese of racism and anti-nationalism when all we are demanding is the right to work, and that as Guyanese we be given preferential treatment. I hope their supporters are not allowing the party’s bigwigs to insult their intelligence by having them feel it is OK for their families to be unemployed when their money is being used to fund these projects. Being pro-Guyanese does not make us racist or anti-national and there are Guyanese of Chinese extraction with whom we share a relationship of camaraderie while the PPP is now trying to manufacture a division. The only anti-national behaviour here is that of the PPP government which is clearly showing they don’t care about Guyana and Guyanese and are not ashamed to cry wolf when they are found out.
If the other projects may have escaped public scrutiny or outcry does not make the situation right. It is scary that the PPP claims an immigration policy that allows it to attract overseas skills which already exist in Guyana and pays out our money to foreigners, but they have no immigration policy that would see Guyanese going to work in certain industries and returning their earnings to Guyana. How convenient that the government ignores this policy utilised by sister Caricom countries in the hotel and agriculture industries.
To the government’s point that Guyanese are working overseas, these workers are working in different categories. They were forced to migrate because there are no jobs or they had to work under poor conditions, or on account of normal migration, technology transfer, the CSME free movement of skills, or doing jobs the host country’s workers refuse to do.
Let the PPP show us how many projects, if any, are funded by the taxpayers of Russia, China and India while their governments give first preference to foreigners when their people are willing and able to do the jobs. This is the crux of the matter. It is made even more glaring when you look at the ratio of Guyanese needing jobs or have the skills to do the job and are being denied opportunities to work compared to those who are being imported to do jobs funded by Guyanese. The foreign governments and businesses are reaping two sweets out of one joint. They are making sure a hefty sum of the money they loan to Guyana sees immediate repatriation by having their people do the jobs and later having Guyanese repay the loans. The government needs to stop its embarrassing excuses and selling out our birthright.
Yours faithfully,
Leslie Gonsalves
President
GB&GWU
Region 10 Councillor
