Yvonne Webb

Un­der the guise of gov­ern­ment to gov­ern­ment arrange­ments eco­nom­ic apartheid is be­ing prac­ticed against lo­cal work­ers and con­trac­tors.That is the claim by Pres­i­dent of the T&T Lo­cal Con­tent Cham­ber TTL­CC Lennox Sir­juesingh who com­plained about an in­flux of for­eign con­trac­tors and work­ers for ma­jor in­fra­struc­tur­al projects across the coun­try. Speak­ing at the TTL­CC's an­nu­al awards cer­e­mo­ny at Linx Suites Restau­rant, San Fer­nan­do, Sir­juesingh called for more op­por­tu­ni­ties for lo­cals.

"As the TTL­CC, we face the vex­ing ques­tion of un­due for­eign labour, con­trac­tors and goods, which we can sup­ply in both qual­i­ty and quan­ti­ty," he told the au­di­ence which in­clud­ed San Fer­nan­do May­or Kaz­im Ho­sein and Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan.Sir­juesingh said on his way to the awards cer­e­mo­ny, he drove past a dor­mi­to­ry at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um and an­oth­er al­most op­po­site, at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal con­struc­tion site, both hous­ing Chi­nese labour­ers.

"And if you tip toe here you'll see yet an­oth­er at the Debe Uni­ver­si­ty," he added.He praised the T&T Guardian and re­porter Rad­hi­ca Sookraj for ex­pos­ing SNC-Lavalin, the Cana­di­an firm cho­sen to de­sign, fi­nance and build the Pe­nal Hos­pi­tal, which is fac­ing al­le­ga­tions of fraud, bribery and cor­rup­tion on sev­er­al projects in Cana­da, Al­ge­ria, Bangladesh and Libya.

Sir­juesingh said the re­ports had put a halt to fur­ther "for­eign in­va­sion" for the the pro­posed Pe­nal and Ari­ma hos­pi­tal con­struc­tion projects. He said: "The Man­dela in us de­mands that we fight against it (eco­nom­ic apartheid). Lo­cal con­tent is a right of our cit­i­zens and we need at every op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­sure this most de­sir­able means is ad­hered to."I call on the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to join with us as we pur­sue with pas­sion our right­ful piece of the eco­nom­ic pie. The end is na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment re­sult­ing in greater peace and se­cu­ri­ty."

Sir­juesingh said 2013 had been the year of lo­cal con­tent leg­is­la­tion."We now have a Draft Pro­cure­ment Bill be­ing dis­cussed with us, along with the tremen­dous ef­forts of the JCC, TTMA, TT Cham­ber and Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute, to name a few. Man­dela was not alone. Our unit­ed voice re­flects the voice of the peo­ple. "We are to be as vig­i­lant as pos­si­ble to en­sure that the Pro­cure­ment Bill, as leg­is­lat­ed, shall be mon­i­tored, eval­u­at­ed, as­sessed, amend­ed, as nec­es­sary," he said.

Sir­juesingh said the lat­est Per­cep­tion of Cor­rup­tion re­port by Trans­paren­cy In­ter­na­tion­al, which shows that T&T is per­ceived as be­ing more cor­rupt than a year ago, is enough to spark na­tion­al out­rage. He called on mem­bers of the Cham­ber to help weed out cor­rup­tion."If there is the Man­dela in you, trade unions, all NGO's, church­es, lead peace­ful, le­gal and ef­fec­tive cam­paigns to­wards elim­i­nat­ing eco­nom­ic in­jus­tice.

"Make this your pledge and keep this years' res­o­lu­tion to live the lega­cy of Man­dela," he said.At the func­tion, the Found­ing Fa­ther award was pre­sent­ed to en­er­gy ex­pert and strate­gist An­tho­ny PaulPaul Sam­lals­ingh, EIA Man­ag­er, TOSL and As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary, TTL­CC, was named Di­rec­tor of the Year.