Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

Ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of NH In­ter­na­tion­al (Caribbean) Emile Elias is op­pos­ing the award of a quar­ter-bil­lion-dol­lar con­tract from the Gov­ern­ment to the Bei­jing Li­u­jian Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny Ltd for the up­grade of Mara­cas beach. Elias said Gov­ern­ment should ad­dress al­le­ga­tions that Chi­nese labour­ers were be­ing ex­ploit­ed at the Bei­jing Li­u­jian Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny Ltd. He al­so raised con­cerns that the Chi­nese con­trac­tors had been de­port­ing protest­ing em­ploy­ees back to Chi­na and bring­ing in new im­mi­grants to T&T.

"Is the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go to al­low an­oth­er 80 Chi­nese work­ers to come back to Trinidad and To­ba­go with work per­mits when they know we have sig­nif­i­cant un­em­ploy­ment in the con­struc­tion sec­tor?" Elias asked. In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Elias stressed that Chi­nese con­trac­tors in T&T were de­priv­ing Trinida­di­ans of em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties. He said the Bei­jing Li­u­jian Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny Ltd had been giv­en the con­tract to re­ha­bil­i­tate Mara­cas Bay for more than $.25 bil­lion dol­lars at a ten­der price some $60 mil­lion above a lo­cal bid.

Elias said: "When a Chi­nese per­son gets a con­tract, not a sin­gle lo­cal per­son is em­ployed. No mon­ey stays here. It is a stim­u­lus for the peo­ple of Chi­na not the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go and I find that this sit­u­a­tion is now get­ting out of hand. "We are go­ing to see Chi­nese peo­ple walk­ing around like 'Mary-Ann' (an Amer­i­can ac­tress on the sit­com Gilli­gan's Is­land) on Mara­cas Bay." Elias re­vealed the lyrics of a song that he com­piled about the Bei­jing Li­u­jian Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed work­ing at Mara­cas beach.