Opposition: Govt planning to house and voter pad

GOVERNMENT is going to use the Immigration (Caribbean Com-munity Skilled Nationals) Amendment Bill to “house pad” and “voter-pad” to win the next general election. The charge was made by UNC MP, Roodal Moonilal Wednesday as he spoke in the debate on the Bill in a special sitting of the House of Representatives.

“Is this the 21st century version of vote by boat?” he asked, saying he hoped Government was not planning to house-pad using Caricom immigrants. Moonilal said the Bill had another serious implication — it would open up the domestic labour market to non-nationals. He noted that Trinidad and Tobago has always had relatively high levels of  unemployment. Even in the height of the boom unemployment was nine percent, he said. He added that youth employment was currently 40 per cent. “Yet this government is opening the gates for non-nationals to come in and take away certain jobs that nationals could either be trained for, or can currently do. “Where is the national interest?” he asked.

Moonilal said Haiti, which was being added to the list of countries whose nationals would qualify as Caricom Skilled Nationals, had a population of 3.8 million, of which 80 per cent lived in abject poverty. Was Trinidad and Tobago prepared for the consequences of opening its doors to Haitians, he asked. Moonilal also pointed out that the only reason Parliament had to meet in special sitting to pass the Bill at this time was because the Caricom Secretariat had cause to write Prime Minister Patrick Manning reminding him of his commitment given since February to broaden the categories of persons qualifying for free movement. The Prime Minister also committed himself to implementing the system of using photo IDs (instead of passports) as a valid travel document for Caricom nationals, Moonilal stated. Saying that the definitions of  media workers, sportsmen, musicians and artistes — the categories of persons qualifying for Caricom Skilled National status —  were very loose, the UNC MP wanted to know what procedure was in place to prevent people from abusing the legislation.

How do you know who is a musician?  Moonilal asked. Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday offered: “a mouth organist.” Kelvin Ramnath joked that CEPEP workers could be considered to be artistic, as they painted their stones, and therefore could qualify as Caricom Skilled Nationals. Moonilal lamented that while Government was retrenching Caroni and BWIA workers, it was opening its doors to Caricom citizens. Earlier the Bill was introduced by Culture Minister Penelope Beckles who noted that Trinidadians and Tobagonians had benefitted from being able to work in certain territories, especially for the various carnivals in the Caribbean. She said wire-benders, calypsonians and others involved in the Carnival industry were getting employment in other Caricom countries. She announced that the National Steel Orchestra would be performing at the opening ceremony of the Heads of Government meeting in Jamaica next week.