VP Jagdeo defends skilled Guyanese being snapped up by oil companies

Mar 15, 2024 ExxonMobil, News, Oil & Gas

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…says Guyana is a free country, citizens can seize opportunities

Kaieteur News – A country’s human resource is often touted as its most valuable resource. With the discovery of oil and gas, and subsequent commencement of production activities in the Stabroek Block, the skilled labour force has been drawn away by more attractive salaries, leaving a serious dent in the local labour market.

This has shifted the country’s growth prospective in light of the numerous vacancies in a number of key areas. However, the government said it does not believe Guyanese should be prevented from seizing opportunities for their personal development. Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo during his weekly conference on Thursday, hosted at the Office of the President said that both the private sector and state agencies have complained about losing its employees to the rapidly developing sector.

Jagdeo was responding to a question from this newspaper when he noted that while the private sector has complained about losing its “people at the bottom” such as cleaners to the public sector since they receive better salaries, the government is losing its skilled workers to the petroleum sector.

It must be noted that the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) for example, the body tasked with conducting audits of the petroleum companies, had complained that the trained auditors were leaving to join the oil and gas sector. The Commissioner General had pointed out that while 65 persons were required for the job, only 31 persons were on roll in August 2023.  Government has however made it clear that it does not have yolks on its people and will not prevent them from taking better paying jobs. “We don’t have serfdom in this country. We share the philosophy that you can’t bind people to a job because you want cheap labour. We have to equip as many of our people to get better paying jobs so they can improve themselves and the lives of their families so if someone has a better job offer, we’re not North Korea to say you have to stay here,” he said.

Jagdeo continued, “They get a better offer, they make their own decisions, they move. In as much as we are unhappy about it because that person, a Guyanese person is improving his or her own life and that should be the objective of the individual and the government too.”

To address the skills shortage on the local labour market, the former President pointed out that government is now removing contractual obligations for Guyanese who benefitted from scholarships, explaining, “that means they don’t have to work for government, they can work anywhere, they don’t have to repay if they decide to move.” In fact, he explained that government is accelerating training opportunities to up-skill more Guyanese through various government programmes.

Additionally, he told reporters that government is also granting work permits to allow “big companies” to import the labour required. For instance, he pointed out that the Chinese company constructing the new Demerara River Crossing was permitted to import their workers since this could have affected the timely delivery of the project, therefore driving up cost.

He was told that Guyanese could not afford to pay construction workers to build their homes, as the oil and gas sector was offering rates estimated at $15,000 per day.

To this end, he explained that the administration has implemented various initiatives aimed at cushioning the expensive or unaffordable cost of labour. Jagdeo listed for example, the government’s construction of core homes and young professional homes that can be purchased at affordable prices. “We then said we are prepared to build for you, if you have a plot of land, there’s a programme now we launched in the Ministry, we are prepared to build for you and then we take you to the bank so if you have a plot of land anywhere in the country, the third facility is where we build the core homes then young professional homes so we’ve entered the building programme to assist people in these areas,” the VP added.

He therefore reasoned, “You’re gonna lose people but they’re going for betterment and you can’t stop that. Why would you stop someone leaving his job because he has a better job offer and people when they are training, that’s what we expect that’s why we are funding the scholarships (so) that they (can) improve themselves and if the state sector can’t yield you the salary that you want and you get an offer in the private sector that’s fine. We are not parting on bad terms; we are fulfilling our responsibilities to our people, the citizens of the country by equipping them to get better jobs.”

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• defends, Jagdeo, losing, oil, salaries, skilled workers

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