– computer training a prerequisite
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday announced that laid off workers of Barama Company Limited will receive a stipend of $25,000 per month for the next three months provided that they attend one day per week of computer training, as a transition measure not unlike the approach taken with bauxite workers some years back.
Further, the President warned Barama that their duty-free and tax concessions could be revoked if they delay in the restart of their plywood operations, since there would be little justification to offer them without the company providing large scale employment, as set out in the concession agreements.
Barama recently laid-off 274 employees because of the closure of its only plywood plant. The plant had to be closed because of a boiler explosion which rendered the plant out of commission for a length of time that the company says can be as long as 20 months.
Mr. Jagdeo spoke at the Guyana International Conference Centre yesterday before a sizeable number of laid-off Barama workers, who were invited to the meeting with the President to discuss possible interventions. The President said he had wished to meet with the workers before, but had been unable to do so because of his busy schedule.
“I am aware of the hardship that many of you face and therefore I don’t want to keep you very long today, but to say that we would assist you transitionally, as we did with the bauxite workers. But I am not giving out free money. We have to enter into a deal today. For the next three months you will get $25,000 a month as a stipend from the Government. In exchange, you will also have to go one day per week to learn computers. Every single person…I want everyone to learn computer skills…only if you attend the classes will you get the money,” the Guyanese Head of State told the laid-off workers. “If you don’t go to classes…and no matter how old you are you have to go, so I don’t want age as an excuse,” he said jokingly to an older worker.
For workers who live in Linden, the President said they will attend their classes at the Linden Technical Institute. He added that a sum of $10 million is being set aside to pay the institutes that would be providing the training.
Further, he said the administration is trying to find jobs in the other government agencies and in the private sector for the workers.
He said the Ministry of Agriculture is looking within Guysuco to see how many of the workers may be able to find a place there. The President said that expressions of interest have also come from the Guyana Furniture Manufacturing and Mazaharally.
He expressed the hope that within a few years time, this entire country will be computer literate and spoke of the one laptop programme, where some 90,000 families will receive computers and internet.
The President encouraged the workers to explore all of the assistance options that the Government has made available and promised to send to them the relevant information. He was surprised that not many of the single parents among the group of workers knew of the Women of Worth (WoW) scheme, which is a partnership between the Government and the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI) to provide small loans with easy terms for initiating micro-enterprises.

NOT SATISFIED
The President said he was aware of the circumstances that led to the workers being sent home. “But I am still not satisfied that the company is doing all it can, and it should, to get the boiler operational again to resume work.”
On this note, he told the workers that officials of the Government have been tasked with carrying out an independent evaluation.
“We are not happy with the timetable that [Barama] has given us. It seems as though it is a shifting timetable. It has gone from 12 months to 20 months and we have a sneaking suspicion that there is no sense of urgency to resume operations. Well let me make it clear…let me make it extremely clear, that if Barama thinks that they will just be cutting wood in Guyana and exporting that wood and not resume the plywood operations, they have another thing coming,” he said, a resounding applause.
The President said that a lot of the concessions that Bamara received from this country and from the Treasury – duty free concessions, tax holidays are “largely because we wanted the employment of our people. If not this large-scale employment then I don’t see any justification for continuing any of those preferences.”
The President also took issue with the fact that several plywood dealers have been profiteering from the closure of the local plant by ‘jacking up prices’ on imported plywood, from which Government has removed taxes.
He said Minister Manniram Prashad, through the Competitions Commission, should look at the issue of the price-gouging by the dealers.