What
skills, knowledge are locals lacking?
From the Government's point of view, what are
the specific skills, abilities and/or technological
knowledge lacking in T&T's workforce? When will a
list of these factors that disqualify our local talent and professionals from
billion-dollar contracts, consultancies and the like be disclosed to T&T
nationals?
A sector of society holds the view that compatriots
do not deserve and/or should never secure tangible
local government contracts; I strongly disagree.
The Government is adamant that it has identified
differences in the abilities of its citizens, which
bear distinct contrast with that possessed by foreign
managers, contractors and labour. In spite of this
pertinent knowledge, the specific range of abilities
the Government has identified as lacking or missing
in its own citizens has not been comprehensively
revealed.
Is it logical and/or visionary leadership to direct
citizens to a barrage of skills training programmes,
without identifying specific target skills and/or
knowledge required to fulfil our human resource
needs? It is my view that the country's local human
resource must be comprehensively informed about
identified skill and knowledge variances, followed
by appropriate interventions to remedy such variances.
It
cannot be good governance to conclude that locals
do not possess particular abilities considered
important for undertaking billion-dollar projects
and/or managerial posts, and simply turn these
contracts over to foreign entities. Not only is
this demeaning to T&T society; it is clearly
unpatriotic?
Certainly
the poor and middle class citizens - who represent
over 80 per cent of T&T's population
- did not sacrifice for nearly two decades to recover
T&T's economy from the recession scourge of
the 1980s and 1990s, to simply pass on the benefits
of their sacrifice to foreigners. Did 1,040,000
T&T citizens, the equivalent of 80 per cent
of the population, really suffer recessionary fiscal
constraints only to allow non-nationals to reap
the benefits of their sacrifice, albeit with an
endorsed stamp of approval from the Government
of the day?
Clearly,
if those that govern - be they legitimate representatives
of the population or not - placed
value on the present and future will-being of T&T's
society, the Government's development and expenditure
thrust would have been centred on T&T's people.
Ironically, the Government has committed tens of
billions of dollars toward the enhancement and
development of non-nationals and foreign interests,
while hundreds of thousands of locals continue
to grievously strive under recessionary conditions.
With
respect to skill sets the Government's training
programmes have managed to produce, continued importation
of managerial, technical and unskilled labour is
an indictment on the effectiveness of these programmes.
They have chiefly managed to fill low-end jobs.
At the end of a second round oil and gas boom T&T
citizens may only have a handful of over priced
cell phones, and a file containing notices of overdue
mortgage payments to show for this period of abundance.
In contrast, foreign entities would have enhanced
and further developed their nation's people at
T&T's expense.
Furthermore,
they would have been enabled to test and develop
new technology, thus creating new intellectual
property. Is that your aim as a T&T citizen?
Is that the objective for which you endured fiscal
hardship throughout the 80s and 90s?
B Joseph
Via e-mail
Trinidad
Express
Sunday,
May 20th 2007
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©2006 Trinidad Express. All Rights Reserved.
