Home News ‘We need to develop local skills, too many of which we currently...
Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn has expressed concern over the current situation in the country: labour being imported for jobs that could be filled by Guyanese, who are not upskilling themselves.
“We have to focus on being better Guyanese: better aware, better skilled, better educated. And I keep saying every day (that) we have to sign for people coming from overseas to do jobs which Guyanese can do,” Minister Benn bemoaned.
As he delivered remarks at the opening of the Guyana Prison Service (GPS) Senior Officers’ Conference yesterday, Minister Benn said Guyanese ought to take up opportunities for training, so they can contribute to addressing the problem of labour shortage in the country.
“We have to develop the skills needed for national development, because when we have the skills necessary for national development, too much of which we import now, we would be in a better position…,” he expressed.
“We have to get those young men in apprenticeship and work on guidance; and we, men, have to give them better examples, so they don’t fall down to the bottom of the social structure,” he admonished.
Last year, the Local Content Secretariat (LCS) had said it would be working with the Ministry of Home Affairs to devise a more coordinated approach to the issuance of work permits for the oil and gas sector.
On this point, Minister Benn stressed the need for prisoners to be rehabilitated so they can contribute meaningfully to the economy upon their release from the prison system.
Labour Minister Joseph Hamilton, recently revealing that Government is developing its migrant labour policy to regulate the influx of skilled foreign workers into the country, has said the Ministry of Home Affairs frequently processes work permits for labour from Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti; and while migrant labour is not a new phenomenon in Guyana, the current scale of demand necessitates well-structured policies to manage its impact effectively.
Director of the Local Content Secretariat, Dr Martin Pertab, had previously noted that capacity exists locally for Guyanese to fill roles in a number of areas, including logistics, accounting, human resources, and health and safety.
