Fixing Labour …PM talks up gov’t spending on community projects
Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo
Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo

By Shauna Jemmott

ACTING President and Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo said that with strengthened collaborations with the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Guyana now has an opportunity to re-enter history, restoring and advancing a decent work agenda.This, he said will propel Guyana’s development through poverty reduction, gender equality, economic growth, and building strong institutions.

The acting President made the disclosure while delivering an address at the Guyana Decent Work Country Programme Consultation hosted by the Ministry of Social Protection in collaboration with the ILO.

Prime Minister Nagamootoo said he has come to realise that the organisations, through consultations, mean “serious business”, incorporating and combining ideas and good practices from several countries to strengthen Guyana’s labour force.

“It seeks to advance the decent work agenda in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and compare and share good practices in the Caribbean. It is a profound consultation on poverty reduction, gender equality, economic growth, strong institutions through social dialogue, all of which combined formed the bedrock of sustainable development,” Nagamootoo pointed out.

He welcomed the efforts since Government, in its 15 months in office, has found it a battle to revive the workforce, even launching a Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the operations of the public service sector as one way of moving on.

Government had inherited from the past regime a situation which could be considered a social nightmare with a somewhat distorted labour force and non-existent statistical facts concerning the unemployment rate, among other issues.

FRACTURED INDUSTRY
While trying to restore the fractured industry, Government has also approved billions of dollars for national and community projects, each of which supports job creation and sustenance.

“Since we came into office here 15 months ago, billions of dollars have been approved for these projects over the national and community levels. But state financed job creation projects alone would not suffice to bring the good life for our people,” PM Nagamootoo told the conference.

He said further that simultaneously the APNU/AFC Government has a burdened responsibility to “fix old problems and broken infrastructures”.

Recognising such even in its pre-election campaign, he quoted then Opposition Leader President David Granger, who had said in the coalition’s 2015 manifesto, “Our young people demand jobs, not jails and drop in centers! Our women and children demand safe homes, not safe houses!”

He said Granger had highlighted that Guyana had been “dragged to the pit of the human development index. We had become an unhappy country described then as the suicide capital of the world, which forced last year the then would be President to remark, ‘Happy people do not commit suicide’,” Nagamootoo said.

On that note, he told the ILO that it must indeed look at the Guyana reality of “what was” and against such “we must fight and correct”.

NIGHTMARISH LEGACY
He admitted that the Government had not entered a new beginning but has since been dealing with inherited issues, a nightmarish legacy.
“Simultaneously, we have to fix old problems and broken infrastructures. When we took office the social reality was like a nightmare. Unemployment figures were non-existent. (The country) hadn’t done any census. It (the unemployment rate) was like a state secret and it had been so 25 years before that, in the previous Government.”

On average, he said, however, about 40 per cent of Guyana’s youth population capable of being employed, was unemployed, and an additional average of 20 per cent of “able-bodied” people were without jobs, in the not so distant past.

Nagamootoo said such situation made it difficult for Government to plan and craft an agenda for the labour force, since such could not be done on mere speculations and with the absence of facts.

“… when you have a situation like that it is difficult to plan; it is difficult to craft an agenda, because you are not responding factually, empirically to any particular need.”

The Prime Minister also noted that in order to talk about decent work, which is the focus of the consultations, the organisations must address the working poor.
“You cannot talk about decent work if you do not address the working poor.”

He congratulated the Director of Decent Work Team and Office for the Caribbean, International Labour Organisation (ILO), Claudia Coenjaerts and her organisation for stepping in a second time to help create, “a great opportunity for us to re-enter history”.

The conference continues today.

 

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