As Guyana’s economy continues to rapidly expand, the country is not only faced with a shortage of labour but a shortfall in contracting companies capable of taking up the mountain of works that need to be executed.
This was the position of Chairman of the Private Sector Commission (PSC) Komal Singh during a recent social media programme, “The Guyana Dialogue”.
“Right now, we do not have enough contractors to do the amount of work that is in the government sector alone, we are short of contractors. Our construction industry is booming. The sector is growing,” Singh posited.
As such, he dispelled hearsay that the public procurement process shuts out certain contractors, noting that the country currently needs all hands-on deck to achieve its developmental targets.
Singh, who is the founder of Gaico Construction Services, revealed that his company has been “tendering on Government projects for the last 30 years in this country; we have won some, we have lost some and I think every single Guyanese and every single business have an opportunity to do well.”
In this regard, he encouraged businesspersons who may not meet the requisite criteria to win certain contracts to form partnerships or consortiums in order to capitalise on the numerous opportunities available.
“A lot of the work that is taking place right now, some of us don’t have the capacity to do it, and the only way we can do that, we need to create partnerships. Our market is growing drastically, and the level of work that is out there right now is so different from five/ten years ago, so forming a consortium, it’s a benefit and not a negative. So, we should not look at one another as competitors, we should look at one another as partners,” the businessman urged.
Against this background, he lauded the government for ensuring certain projects are executed by persons with the respective communities – a move which not only gives them an opportunity to grow but helps to address the issue of labour shortfall nationally.
“If you looked around our country right now, you will see, in a number of villages, people are getting involved in projects in the construction sector in a big way. I can safely say here right now if you look around Guyana, it’s so difficult to find carpenters around the place…we went into a community right in Georgetown and we saw those guys, as a result of government initiatives, start building blocks within the communities and these are guys who were not getting jobs before or weren’t being employed before, now, they’re doing their own business,” Singh explained.
He was referring to the Leopold Street, Georgetown youths who, under the guidance of the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA), formed the Leopold Street Inc. which has since been contracted by the Housing Ministry to build 1800 concrete blocks.
The Guyana Government has been actively trying to address the issue of labour shortage in the country. Minister of Labour Joseph Hamilton had recently revealed that some 2,200 workers are needed to meet the current demands of Guyana’s labour force.
The government has already mulled the option of importing labour, a move which Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo had previously described as a balancing act.
So, it’s a very sensitive area because you don’t want to do it in a way where a man is still looking for a job – say a displaced sugar worker or maybe a bauxite worker – and then he sees you bringing in somebody right away to take a job… It’s a balancing act and we’re very conscious of the need to not overheat the economy; we’re very conscious of our people still, in some areas, being unemployed and we’re very conscious about the need to do something to ensure that we keep our capital programmes going. So, it’s between these three variables that often you have to make these decisions,” the Vice President had outlined.
Government is currently on a housing drive as it pushes to develop 50,000 house lots over a five-year period at an average of 10,000 per year. With the new house lots comes an increasing demand for the construction of houses, which will require the services of contracting companies.
The vast number of infrastructural projects being executed by the government across the country also demand the services of contracting companies. The private sector and private individuals are also undertaking a number of projects which depend on the availability of contractors.
