FROM SURPRISE TO SHOCK

Feb 12, 2013 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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The pace at which the Marriott Hotel project is proceeding is amazing. Never before in the history of Guyana has construction taken place at such an astonishing speed. Three floors of the structure are already up.
The rapidity with which the work has been completed has left even those in the local construction sector awestruck. There was even the comment that had Guyanese been undertaking the construction, the foundation would not yet have been completed.
The amazement at the speed of the construction has since given way to major disappointment and a brewing disfavour. Kaieteur News was again responsible for another spectacular discovery. If there was a Grammy Award for investigative journalism, this newspaper would win the award hands down. This newspaper discovered that except for a security guard, no other Guyanese was employed on the project. The works being undertaken are being done exclusively by Chinese nationals who are working for the Chinese firm which secured the contract for the construction of the hotel.
Yet when this was touted, the government was clear to indicate that it would provide significant employment for Guyanese. We are now told the astonishing news that the contractor had negotiated certain flexibilities because of concern over the availability of labor and skills  so as to be able to complete the project on time.
One has to appreciate, to some extent, the need by foreign companies to recruit skills from overseas to undertake projects in Guyana. There are examples of certain skills not being available in Guyana, but when it comes to the construction sector it is disappointing and worrying to learn that not even a labourer, works supervisor or a quantity surveyor could have been found from Guyana to work on this hotel project.
Admittedly, there are firms that have had had to import labour in Guyana for tasks that are not highly skilled. The problem as many employers in the construction sector will explain, is that it is not easy to obtain a full quota of unskilled and semi-skilled workers in the construction sector.
Sometimes a contractor will have a pool of labourers and will obtain a good week’s work from them. Then after payday many of them do not turn out back to work until the third day of the new week. In other cases, new job offers will tempt them and they will leave you stranded. This is how the market for unskilled and semi-skilled workers is in Guyana, and this is one of the main reasons why labour has to be imported from overseas.
While the concerns of the Chinese construction firm building the hotel are therefore understandable, the actions of the government are not. They should have insisted on the employment of a minimum number of nationals.
This is inexcusable. Even more deplorable is the fact that instead of the Chinese firm responding to the absence of Guyanese at the construction site, it is a government representative who is making the excuses and trying to explain why permission was granted for so much foreign labour.
This level of foreign labour is unacceptable. The hotel project has private partnerships and is predicted to become a white elephant. This newspaper has gone as far as predicting that the hotel will have to be eventually liquidated and may well end up in the hands of the syndicated investors that have preferred shares.
So the only benefit that is likely to be derived from this project will be the employment benefits. Now the shocking news has come that some US$50 M is being sunk into a project and not even a local shovel man can cash in on a piece by being employed on this project during the construction phase.
It is unacceptable that one of the largest investments in the country is totally excluding Guyanese labour. The workers are from China and when they are finished they will go right back to China with the money they would have worked for. This is a grand betrayal by the government of Guyana and should be the basis for a motion of no confidence against the administration.
The problem we have is that the opposition in this country is not going to move for a motion of no- confidence against the administration because it is not ready for elections. Instead of a motion of no- confidence, it is likely to pass some other motion about some insignificant development when the immediate concern should be about ensuring that both Guyanese sub contractors and workers are provided with employment.
The fact that the contract allowed the Chinese to recruit labour when the same labour is available locally is a terrible wrong that needs to be put right.
Language differences cannot be the excuse because all the contractor has to do is to sub contract aspects of the work to Guyanese firms and these Guyanese firms will undertake to build to the specifications desired utilizing locals.
What has happened with this project is unpardonable. Heads must roll for this mistake and the situation must be rectified henceforth.
This project must benefit Guyanese in its major phase. This phase is the construction phase. It is of no consolation in saying that the hotel when constructed will employ over 200 Guyanese when during the construction phase it could have employed hundreds of Guyanese, but that there were no jobs for locals except for a gateman.
It is like asking the Guyanese to pick up the crumbs after the project is finished. If as predicted by this newspaper, this project becomes a white elephant, it is not just the crumbs that are going to be picked up by Guyanese taxpayers but the entire tab for this undertaking.

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