Dear Editor,
Job creation should be every government’s top priority, as financial stability depends on the country’s employment rate. Regarding this axiom, my mind goes back to August 2016, when David Granger, on the TV programme, “Public Interest”, said that “Employment is not something to be provided by the government. There is self-employment and we are working with villages to generate more employment in those villages, but it is going to be agro-based employment”. As we all can ‘dig up,’ in its 2015 pre-Election’s Manifesto, the APNU-AFC did promise, that the aim of the new government (APNU+AFC) was to create jobs, “… jobs and more jobs in the shortest time possible.” Why? “Our young people cannot wait “five more years” for jobs for which they could be adequately trained and get better pay and greater job satisfaction.”
Now what is happening in Guyana is a complete and positive reversal. I see that, according to commitments made to integrate former sugar workers into the new work environment, the company (Guysons K+B Industries (GKB ), in a press release to the media, said that it has started to prepare local workers to provide support to the company in its oil and gas ventures. As a matter of fact, Guysons K+B (GKB) Industries Inc. is so ‘up and running,’ that it has started the training needs assessment and administrative process to employ over 40 workers from Guyana Sugar Corporation’s (GuySuCo) Enmore Sugar Packaging Facility, emphasizing and delivering on the company’s agreement with the government that it would train and hire those individuals to work at the new US$37.5 million Industrial development site.
In fact, GKB Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Faizal Khan, along with the company’s human resources community, support and administrative teams, already visited the plant and met with the workers to register their details and understand the roles they played previously, in order to start stream-lining employment suitability and training. The company’s CEO said that “We have agreed to take on the entire Enmore facility team, who are guaranteed jobs in the transition from sugar to oilfield. (And) Given that this is a different industry, the current staff will require training.” This whole venture is not any ‘fly-by-night’ happening too, as the transitioning staff will be trained by GKB with trainers from America coming to Guyana regularly. So, what Guyanese are looking at is the creation of a world-class oilfield service and manufacturing facility that will create 500 jobs over the next five years.
GKB, after all, knows what it is about. It is a joint venture made up of Guysons Engineering Ltd, a Guyanese company operating in Guyana for 30 years, and K+B Industries Inc., its American partner established in 1972. Already set up is a licensed machine shop in West Ruimveldt that is already operational to offer threading and accessory support to the industry. GKB is now expanding its operations by establishing additional services, including manufacturing at the Enmore 55-Acre site.
Sincerely,
H. Singh
