Cherisse Moe

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Don­na Cox said the 2,827 Chi­nese na­tion­als grant­ed work per­mits in 2007 and 2008 were nec­es­sary to fill the "labour gap" which ex­ist­ed in the coun­try. Cox said while she was well aware that some quar­ters in the so­ci­ety were op­posed to the Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to use so many Chi­nese work­ers, she be­lieved that there was a "good bal­ance" of lo­cal and non-im­mi­grant work­ers.

"I think there is space for every­body...There is def­i­nite­ly a good bal­ance," she said. "There is need for the Chi­nese be­cause there was a labour short­age, es­pe­cial­ly in the con­struc­tion sec­tor. They are do­ing work on the Per­form­ing Arts build­ing around the Sa­van­nah. "It's not just the Gov­ern­ment who is bring­ing them in, they are com­ing in and do­ing work in dif­fer­ent ar­eas." Cox was speak­ing dur­ing an in­ter­view af­ter she an­swered the ques­tion on the work per­mits.

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Con­trac­tors As­so­ci­a­tion Mikey Joseph said the de­ci­sion by the Gov­ern­ment to grant work per­mits to Chi­nese and non-Cari­com na­tion­als was to­tal­ly un­ac­cept­able, es­pe­cial­ly in light of the glob­al eco­nom­ic down­turn. "I want to make it abun­dant­ly clear that we don't have any ob­jec­tions for Cari­com work­ers to come and work here as long as it's in keep­ing with the laws of T&T and the laws of the Caribbean Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my," he said.

"But I do not sup­port the grant­i­ng of work per­mits to Asian work­ers. "I don't have to re­al­ly go far to point out the neg­a­tive ef­fects it is hav­ing on our econ­o­my. A lot of our cit­i­zens are un­em­ployed. We have to see about our own first."