“We will give you access to opportunities” – Pres Ali tells diaspora in St Kitts

President Dr Irfaan Ali has lobbied the Guyanese diaspora in St Kitts and Nevis to return and participate in Guyana’s ongoing development, assuring them that they will have access to the many opportunities that are available here.

The Head of State was at the time addressing Guyanese living in St Kitts, where he travelled last week to attend the 50th Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Heads of Government Meeting.

According to President Ali, “We will be implementing a number of measures that will give you access to the opportunities that we have back home. And the decision is in your hands as to how you want to participate, if you want to participate and at what level you want to participate.”

These measures, the Guyanese leader explained during Friday’s engagement, will be birthed from a development framework that will be established between Guyana and St Kitts and Nevis. Grounded in a number of Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs), the framework will identify a number of priorities that the two nations will pursue together in the interest of their respective countries and the peoples.

“We are going to work on a cooperation agreement on food security, exchange of technology, exchange of skills, and we want to create a framework that will allow a smooth movement of goods and services between St Kitts and Nevis and Guyana. We have to build a stronger mechanism of supporting you. This is the first step in building that mechanism,” President Ali stated, renewing his commitment that Guyana’s development must be an instrument for regional prosperity.

However, Dr Ali pointed out that the rapid pace of this unprecedented transformation has presented challenges – chief among which is the “extraordinary shortage” of labour in Guyana, especially in the booming construction sector.

“If you go to any construction site now, the most common language might be Spanish on the construction site. And that is because of the pace of development and what is taking place. So much of our labour in the construction sector [and] much of our skills are coming now from neighbouring countries and countries from within the region.”

“We have a lot of Guyanese who were in the construction sector in Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, who would have returned also because, of course, with the expansion, the payment structure would have changed also,” he noted.

First reintegrate and participate

While noting that persons in the diaspora expect to have access to new land and housing when they return to Guyana, President Ali contended that they must first reintegrate and participate in the country’s transformation.

“Whilst we can do as much as we can to ensure that you get allocation and you can rebuild your homes in Guyana, you also must take that first step in getting back into the economy, getting back into the community. We have a massive shortage of key personnel… [But] we have to build up that capacity [and] we have to take a risk with our own people in building our own future,” he posited.

To this end, the Head of State encouraged those diaspora members in St Kitts to return home and also participate in Guyana’s development.

In fact, the President is committed to making their travels easier with access to services for the Guyana documentations, such as passport, foreign certificate replacement and national identification (ID) card replacement, among others.

“What I can assure you is that if there is a major backlog in passport renewal and [other] documentation, we are going to set up a special team to come here, [even] if they have to spend a week, …and to work on clearing up that backlog. And that will also allow you in the processing of certificates and IDs to have your right documents so that your process here of regularisation can also be completed,” the Guyanese leader noted.

No deportation

In fact, the Prime Minister (PM) of St Kitts and Nevis, Dr Terrence Drew, who was also at the engagement on Friday, assured the Guyanese community there that they will all be regularised.

“We have taken a decision that we will not deport any Guyanese at all,” PM Drew declared, adding, “There was a meeting that was held with the advisor to help to accelerate the residency process and the citizenship process as well. There are some glitches here and there, but the overall policy we have outlined – nobody to be deported. Everyone to get regularisation.”

According to the St Kitts leader, this was among some of the issues he discussed with President Ali during his visit to Georgetown about a week ago. Also discussed was the tightening of the bilateral relations between the two nations.

“In a few weeks, I’m taking a contingent to Guyana to visit with His Excellency, President [Ali], to formalise a number of MoUs and agreements that we think will redound to the benefit of your community, specifically here in St Kitts and Nevis. There are about seven things that we’re going to work on together,” the PM stated.