Dear Editor,
My heart goes out to the Venezuelans; they were always a proud, dynamic, powerful and successful people. They were all very humane to the point where they were always taking in immigrants, even illegal ones, and making them legal immigrants. Even before the late President Chávez passed away, he had made thousands of Guyanese Venezuelan citizens. In addition, here at home, the Venezuelan government provided the funds to build a centre for the homeless. I recall during the ʼ70s and ʼ80s, we had a severe shortage of certain basic food items to which people were accustomed and which were necessary. Store shelves were almost empty.
I recall as well when Guyanese women would leave Guyana to go to Trinidad, taking items from Guyana to do trading. They would return with things like evaporated milk, condensed milk, onions, garlic and plastic wares. I recall myself even visiting Trinidad and Tobago and returning with toys for my children. I recall having a chocolate when all these things were unavailable. I would give a child a piece of chocolate and he would bite a piece and put the rest in his pocket for the next day. These were the days of great difficulty for Guyanese. These were days when people had to line up at certain government outlets for basic commodities. Strings were pulled to acquire a bottle of cooking gas. The new generation may not know this. And some of the older ones seem to have forgotten it.
These were the kinds of trauma we went through when goods were controlled by the government under its socialist experiment. Socialism was even being pushed by Dr Cheddi Jagan, the opposition political leader with the understanding he was providing critical support to the socialist government of those days. However, I wish to give some credit to the late President of Guyana LFS Burnham for encouraging Guyanese to grow food, so that we had lots of cassava, plantain, eddoes and other local staples that could sustain life. Hence, Guyana never descended to the kind of anarchy and destruction that is taking place in Venezuela.
Recently while to travelling to Panama I saw dozens of Venezuelans with trading bags with things to sell so they could feed their families at the Guyana airport. I never thought I would see the day when people from other lands would come to Guyana out of necessity to shop as we did in the past.
My point for raising all of the above is that we must not forget our history when it comes to others’ food shortages. Today we find a few Venezuelans, some of them looking frail, hungry and desperate because there is no food, there is no opportunity, and there are no jobs in Venezuela. We have jobs in Guyana that Guyanese do not want! We have migrants coming to Guyana who become business people like those from China and India or those who accept elitist type jobs. Here are poor people of the region who just want a job.
Security services alone in this city can employ at least 1,000 security personnel immediately. If employed that will mean taxes to be paid, NIS to be contributed, revenue for the state.
Give these people a chance to come to Guyana to work legally. All employers have shortages of employment to do work as labourers in factories, workshops, furniture establishments, domestic workers, restaurant workers, hotel workers, security guards, cleaners, etc. We need workers and will need many more!
The Government of Guyana elected by the people of Guyana should not forget our misfortune in the past, and lend a helping hand ‒ at least in the form of offering legal employment to some of our brothers and sisters of the Caribbean and those that hail from Venezuela. I am prepared to sit with any fellow employers or humanitarian organizations to render support to the Venezuelan people.
Yours faithfully,
Haji Roshan Khan
