ABOUT 10 to 15 years ago, when I was an engineering student and before, I realised that the labour cost to construct a typical residential house on the coast of Guyana was approximately a third of the cost of materials.

Currently, anyone building a home will tell you that labour costs are almost as much as the materials. Elementary reasoning will show that material costs never decreased, but rather, as the cost of materials increased over the years, so did the cost of labour. However, the cost of labour increased at a rate that was greater than the rate of cost increase for  materials.
The obvious question then is:
Why did the cost of labour increase so dramatically?
My simple answers are:
1. A significant number of our construction labour force now work out of Guyana, in the Caribbean and to a lesser extent in other regions, where there is greater remuneration for construction skills.
2. The price of gold has drawn labour and talent from all sectors, construction included. There has never been so many Guyanese and non- nationals working in the interior before these  past couple of years.
3. The history of mankind will show a progressive shift from tedium. We don’t like to work hard. So we enslave (sad but true) and on the more ethical side, we innovate- technologically, and when possible we incentivise the hard work but we are yet to circumvent with science.
The labour in foreign markets and the gold- producing sector are far more incentivised than working on the coast in Guyana.

To some extent, the recent limelight that Winston Brassington finds himself in following his observations and comments stems from the afore-mentioned reality coupled with the fact that the market cost of labour in China is significantly less than that of Guyana.
I am inclined to believe that the wages being paid by the Chinese contractors building the Marriott would be scoffed at by Guyanese, and that is the reality of the global disparity in differing labour markets.
In my opinion, this is where the investigative journalistic effort should focus so that a richer and more productive and progressive philosophical stance on the matter is facilitated.