| The protest against the Marriott Hotel project smells “stink of racism,NFL Jerseys Clearance,” Presidential Advisor on Governance, Gail Teixeira said yesterday.Guyana has never seen the level “of what I call racism against a particular ethnic group and a particular nationality in this country,Stitched Jerseys,” Teixeira said at a press conference by the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP).The government has sought to justify the importation of Chinese workers to build the Marriott Hotel, saying that enough skilled workers were not available here and that the Chinese labour was thought more suited to complete the project in the time the Chinese contractor wants.Teixeira, speaking at the PPP’s Freedom House Headquarters, yesterday,China Jerseys For Sale, said that even Guyanese contractors have been complaining of not having a reliable number of semi-skilled workers, such as masons, plumbers, painters and electricians.She said that having non-Guyanese workers on projects here is nothing new. She pointed to the start of operations by the Barama Company Limited, when mainly Asian workers were employed.However, before it went into operation Barama employed a number of Guyanese, first to construct the residences and the factory, then to harvest the logs and later to work in the factory.In building the cricket stadium at Providence, she said that Indian workers were brought in under agreements with India which was financing the loan. Again there were Guyanese to aid in the construction and to work on the ground and surroundings.Teixeira said that the construction of the Guyana International Conference Centre and the Skeldon Sugar Estate were also done with a mostly foreign labour force.“You’re behaving as if this is the first time,” she declared yesterday. However, in every case there was Guyanese labour from the inception.She said that currently in Guyana, there are Canadian, Russian and even Guyanese companies who employ foreigners. None has a 100 per cent foreign labour force.She said that in signing bilateral agreements, foreign governments would ask for the employment of their workers, and in the case of investors, they will request to bring a certain number of workers and the government goes through with it.She said that it is the “right” of investors to bring in their workers. In the case of the Marriott, the government has failed to attract any investors, and has been using taxpayers’ money to fund the construction of the hotel.Teixeira said that the PPP government is working class, and that means protecting local and foreign workers.But she said that in the negotiations to bring in workers, this is discussed in terms of what categories of workers are available locally. The company still has to “justify each case.”Attorney General Anil Nandlall, speaking at the same press conference, also weighed in on the issue, saying that with hundreds of thousands of Guyanese working in all parts of the world, Guyana cannot “afford” to take the kind of position as the protest against the Marriott.“We have always been a hospitable country and one that has had an open and friendly immigration policy,Cheap Jerseys Supply,” Teixeira stated.But the statement of Teixeira was not met kindly by Joseph Harmon,jerseys cheap nfl, a Member of Parliament for A Partnership For National Unity (APNU) who said it is clear that the government is attempting to “swing” the issue into a racist one. “What is clear, and that is what we have been saying, is that the government did a bad deal on Marriott. This entire deal needs reviewing. It is wrong and atrocious to put a spin on it this way.”The construction of the Marriott hotel without any Guyanese workers is an “atrocity” that must be stopped, the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) declared last week. The TUC said that the Marriott construction contract violates the constitution which guarantees Guyanese the right to work. “The constitution says that you have a right to work; you can’t go and sign an agreement and say you are giving away my right to work in this country to somebody else,Jerseys Wholesale,” the GTUC stated.In late 2011, former President Bharrat Jagdeo officially turned the sod for the construction of the hotel with the promise that the project would create hundreds of jobs in the construction phase, and beyond, when it becomes operational.The government has said that it bargained with the Chinese contractor to lower its construction cost by US$9 million in exchange for freedom to choose its own workers, and so the Chinese workers were brought in.The government also argued that employing a Chinese workforce was a better guarantee for construction at the rate the company would want.According to the Guyana Trades Unions Congress, this is the same as saying that Guyanese workers are lazy and it also gives the Chinese company the go ahead to employ foreign workers and flout the labour laws of this country.The government’s claim that the language barrier was one of the reasons the Chinese firm hired Chinese workers makes no sense to the Trades Union Congress. It said that any contract entered into force should have the criteria of language compatibility to cater for the Guyanese workforce, so there should be no excuse for shutting out local labour.The only money so far being put into the Marriott project has come out of the public coffers, some $2 billion of it has already been handed over to the contractors and there is no sign of the investors the government talks about.Private investors are expected to contribute US$27 million, but even the low end of the operations is posing a headache since the government is busy trying to prove that the project is feasible. Repeated advertisements for investors in the restaurant, casino and nightclub have had no takers. |
