Foreign workers will not earn more than Guyanese public servants – VP Jagdeo assures

– as Opposition criticizes hiring 500 Bangladeshi healthcare workers

Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has assured that the remuneration packages for foreign labourers who have been brought to work in Guyana’s public sector would not exceed those being received by public servants.
“I can say to you that any person who is recruited from abroad to work in the public sector – cause a lot of these are not coming to work necessarily in the public sector, but if they come to work in the public sector, their conditions of service will be no better than what the Guyanese get. It will be comparable to what our people will get for the particular skill,” he assured.
“So, if you have a registered nurse who is making ‘x’ amount of money, including the other benefits, the Guyanese will have to get exactly that same amount, or maybe, in some cases, even higher. But they’re not gonna get less than anybody coming into this country to work in the public sector, where our people have comparable skill,” the Vice President explained during a press conference on Thursday.
Jagdeo’s assurance comes on the heels of the PNC-led A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) Opposition accusing the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government of a deliberate strategy to not only keep public servants in poverty, but to replace them with migrants.
These claims have followed a recent disclosure by the Foreign Affairs Ministry that approval has been given to a private recruitment firm, Sigma Engineers Ltd Inc., to recruit Bangladesh healthcare workers. In response to a request from the company, the Foreign Affairs Ministry has authorized the agency to recruit foreign healthcare workers, not just Bangladeshis, with the view to addressing concerns raised both by the public and private sectors on the severe skills shortage in the health sector.
At his weekly press conference on Thursday, Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton called this recruitment of foreign workers “unacceptable”, and called for a halting of this process. He accused the Government of wanting to ensure that all public servants, including Guyanese healthcare workers, live in poverty by giving foreign workers a better salary, and thus a better way of life than Guyanese.
According to Norton, “The salaries and benefits being offered the foreign workers are substantially higher than for equivalent Guyanese workers in the healthcare system. This is a slap in the face of our hardworking Guyanese workers… The use of work contracts to recruit public servants from other countries is a devious stratagem by the PPP to suppress wages and benefits for local workers as well… Guyanese workers will end up being second-class workers in their own country.”
But VP Jagdeo argued that the Opposition’s claims are “patently false” and a “conjecture.” He pointed out that the Opposition merely saw the approval letter and not the contract, but had begun to spread “fake” details about the recruitment process in an attempt to mislead public servants.
The Vice President went on to defend the Government’s move to import foreign workers, contending that this course is needed in order to meet severe labour shortages in certain sectors.
“We’ve said over and over, and…I’ve repeated this: that in some areas, we’re allowing labour to come into work. We pointed out that we’re allowing the Chinese to bring in their labour for the bridge, and they said they were gonna bring people from Bangladesh to work there, because they work with them in building the stadium in Qatar for the World Cup…We allowed others to bring in labour, because we have a labour shortage in Region Four, particularly for some types of labour. And if we want these projects to be completed – the bridges, the highways etc., we have to do that,” he contended.
With Government building 12 new hospitals across the country and planning to rehabilitate existing healthcare facilities, there would be need for more doctors, including specialist doctors, as well as an increase in the number of nurses. Jagdeo noted that Government is already facing a shortage of nurses within the public healthcare system, hence the possibility that foreign workers would have to be recruited to fill these critical gaps.
“We have to recruit people to come and work in these hospitals to make sure our people get the best quality care. We can’t just build the hospitals and leave them there without staff,” he declared.
In a statement on Monday, the Foreign Affairs Ministry explained that the Private Sector Commission (PSC) has, on numerous occasions, requested the Government’s assistance in addressing the need to fill the skills shortages, not only in the health sector, but also in the critical sectors of construction, engineering, and services, given the expansion and growth of Guyana’s economy.
Consequently, Sigma Engineers Ltd was appointed to liaise with relevant authorities from various countries to recruit healthcare workers, including, but not limited to, Bangladeshis.
The Ministry noted that it is within this context that the authorization letter was issued, to prevent issues such as human trafficking or any abuse of this process.
Moreover, it clarified that, to date, no one has been recruited through this recruitment agency for the public sector, since shortages are currently being filled by personnel from Cuba.
VP Jagdeo outlined on Thursday that in addition to filling gaps within the public health sector, Cubans are being recruited for the private sector as well. “The private sector has been recruiting these people (from Cuba) and also from other countries. So, the Bangladeshis are no different. If they come, they’ll be recruited,” he posited. (G-8)