Reciprocation vital to free movement within Caricom -Rohee
Stabroek News
June 7, 2003
Guyana will look closely at how other countries remove restrictions on the free movement of skilled workers within Caricom and is not prepared to act unilaterally.
Briefing the media after the 15th Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development held in George-town last week, Minister of Foreign Trade and International Co-operation, Clement Rohee said Guyana was expected to make the necessary amendment to the CARICOM National Skills Act in time for the June 30 deadline. A draft has been prepared by the Attorney-General’s Office.
However, he advised that the free movement of skills would not be done on a unilateral basis as Guyana would be taking into consideration what other member states were doing.
All restrictions on skilled workers are to be removed by 2004 when the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) comes into being. But Rohee said “restrictions are not easily removed because there are a lot of political underpinnings in countries with respect to removal of restrictions.”
He said most of the restrictions Guyana had were in respect to work permits and this was applicable to many Caricom member states.
He said it was agreed at a recent meeting of the Inter-Ministry Consultative Committee that should Guyana address its legislation on work permit requirements then 95% of the restrictions would have been addressed.
Currently the approved categories of persons who are to move freely under the amendment are university graduates, media workers, artistes, musicians and sports persons.
With respect to the facilitation of travel, he said Guyana did not have the equipment to offer its nationals machine-readable photo IDs nor to read those presented by CARICOM nationals. But Guyana has agreed in principle to accept machine readable photo-IDs from Caricom nationals at its ports of entry.
Rohee also said Guyana was expected to meet the June 30 deadline for the inclusion of the revised Caricom treaty in local legislation.
The government is also making efforts to bring about widespread acceptance of a manual that was produced by the Caricom Secretariat so that public servants could learn about CSME.
The ministry has established an inter-ministerial consultative body to co-ordinate the implementation of the CSME.
Further, the ministry is taking steps to establish business and labour advisory committees as Rohee said the CSME was not only an issue for governments. The ministry will also soon embark on a national public education programme to promote the CSME in Guyana.
