CHEAP CHINESE LABOUR

This is how businessman Emile Elias described the discovery of eight Chinese men at an unfinished building on Charlotte Street, Port-of-Spain, on Monday.

He also said the people responsible for the men’s illegal presence in Trinidad and Tobago, presumably to perform menial tasks, should be arrested.

Speaking in his capacity as a founding member of the TT Contractors Association, an outspoken Elias said the trafficking of Chinese labour has been an ongoing problem for many years, one which he contends is “obviously supported by certain persons at a high level.” “These men were found in a building so the owner of the building should have been arrested. The alleged contractor who was using them should have been arrested.

“The person who met them at the airport when they landed - and there is always someone meeting them at the airport because they cannot speak a word of English.

“They (Chinese) lie on the form and say that they have come for the allowed 90 days, and then they do not go back.” Elias, who is also executive chairman of NH International (Caribbean) Limited, called on the authorities to quickly implement the laws that were already in place.

“We have labour laws. We have the OSH Act. We have immigration laws. How come all these people are being allowed into this country?” he asked.

“Who is the human trafficker? Who is the contractor of the job and who is the owner of the building? Let’s name and shame them.” Elias claimed the men are made to “work and break every labour law in the country.” He told Sunday Newsday: “They break the OSH and labour laws in respect of hours of work. They break every law regarding the payment of taxes, no PAYE. All of these laws are being broken and the persons are known and we have to go to the source of who exactly recruited these people in China.” Currently detained at the Immigration Detention Centre, Aripo, the eight Chinese men were reportedly brought into the country to do menial, contract labour.

They were held on Monday by officers of the Port-of-Spain City Police and Immigration Division during an exercise on Charlotte Street.

Saying the Chinese were taking food out of the mouths of citizens, Elias said those jobs could have easily gone to locals “so they could feed their children.” “And the authorities should be ashamed of themselves that they talk about arresting these people.

But they didn’t arrest the person who is feeding them, who was employing them, who was paying them? On whose property they were living - all illegal acts.” He added: “This is human trafficking at its worst because what they are doing is bringing these people here. They work 60 hours a week without overtime. They don’t pay local taxes.

“They are fed (sic) meagre amounts of money at the job site.

They sleep and live on the job site in filthy conditions and then they are sent back to China. The reason they do this is that they perceive that this is cheaper than using local labour.” Elias said the law enforcement agencies, including the Immigration Division, should have been more proactive in addressing the problem of illegal immigrants over the years.

“Don’t tell me you are investigating.

Fifty per cent of the issue with them is that they are victims. So they are also breaking the law and they are victims,” he said.

“But the culprit is the human trafficker who brought them to Piarco in the first place. All of them should be arrested without any delay and charged with harbouring illegal immigrants and bringing them into the country, because none of them have a work permit.” Elias asked: “How could they get a work permit for construction skills that we have in surplus in Trinidad and Tobago? We are already in a recession. Plenty of people are looking for work.

This criminal behaviour has to be stopped with some urgent arrests.

Otherwise, it will continue as it has in the past. Now is the time.” Elias also said the conditions at the detention centre were like the Hilton Trinidad compared to the environment in which the Chinese nationals lived on the building site.

“It can’t be difficult to know who is the building owner, the contractor in charge and who met them at Piarco and met them inside with landing cards. Who is the immigration officer who allowed these people in?” he asked.

“We stop Jamaican from landing and there is always a lot of publicity when that happens. How come we did not stop them (Chinese)?” Former president of the TT Contractors Association Mikey Joseph echoed Elias’ views, saying the owner of the Charlotte Street building and the contractor who brought the Chinese men into the country, in the first place, should be investigated and charged.

“The fact that you have illegal immigrants found on a construction site, they have to be working for somebody,” he told Sunday Newsday.

“And the police should have continued their investigations and charged the owner and the contractor who would have had these people there and have them account for the illegal migrants and how they came into contact with them.

“I think they (police) have a very good foundation to start with because they are working on a project and it must have had a main contractor.” Regarding the apparent difficulties in bringing such perpetrators to justice, Joseph said: “Sometimes, you have the culture of the brown paper bag. So that people who might have been influenced improperly, would want to cover their tracks. That is why the action of the police in charging the individuals heading up the line will reveal all of the players.” Saying the police and immigration did a good job in unearthing the Chinese immigrants, Joseph reasoned that the next course of action should be to determine the basis upon which they arrived in the country. He said the media had a pivotal role to play in keeping this issue on the front burner.

“There are deeper and more fundamental issues that we must follow up on to call people to account.

If you drop it and look for the next sensational story, nothing will not happen.” Joseph said the police too must must continue their probe.

“Charging the illegal immigrants themselves is not good enough.

The police has to follow through and bring to book all who facilitate them (Chinese) in being here.” Counter Trafficking Unit deputy director Alana Wheeler said she was not in office and was unable to answer Sunday Newsday’s questions when contacted on the issue yesterday.

Over the past decade, Chinese workers have been employed on major multi-million dollar State construction projects, such as the National Academies for the Performing Arts in Port of Spain and San Fernando, which were awarded to Chinese firms. Their hiring were also conditions of government- to-government loans from China