标签： Guyana

Controversial one-sided employment terms for Indian migrant workers at a major Guyanese quarry operated by India-based EKAA HRIM Earth Resources Management have triggered an official multi-agency investigation, following public outcry over alleged unfair labor practices and passport retention.

Details of the exploitative clauses came to light after Demerara Waves Online News obtained and reviewed one of the seven-year employment contracts binding 38 Indian migrant workers brought to Guyana to work at the 15-year lease quarry. The terms impose steep financial penalties on workers for a range of scenarios, including early termination, dismissal, and unauthorized absence.

Under the contract terms, workers terminated for cause—including providing incorrect personal information, code of conduct violations, or repeated underperformance after two formal warnings—are required to reimburse the company $3,000 to cover hiring, training, and administrative costs, in addition to covering their own return travel expenses out of pocket. Workers who choose to end their 24-month contract early face even higher penalties of $5,000, with no coverage for return travel provided by the employer. Any worker who absconds from their post forfeits all unpaid wages, accrued leave, and earned bonuses, and must pay an additional $5,000 contract breach fee within 14 days or face legal action.

The contract also includes restrictive clauses that limit worker speech and flexibility. Workers are barred from making defamatory or false statements about the company or other staff, with immediate termination and no severance pay as a consequence, plus the possibility of additional legal action for reputational damage. EKAA HRIM also reserves the right to modify company policies at its sole discretion, with the original contract and signed code of conduct taking precedence in any dispute. Workers are additionally prohibited from sharing contract details including salary and benefit amounts with external parties, a violation that counts as breach of contract.

Work schedule terms also raise concerns over excessive working hours and unpaid overtime. The contract requires workers to be on site 12 hours per day, six days per week, with mandatory work on public holidays and non-working days during emergencies at the employer’s request. While the company notes that base pay is structured to include overtime for the standard 72-hour work week, overtime is only granted for hours worked beyond the daily and weekly requirement after meeting production targets. Any extra time worked to hit targets delayed by external factors such as bad weather does not qualify for overtime pay, and workers who fail to meet production targets face automatic salary reductions.

The situation escalated after Guyana’s Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed and a delegation of party leaders visited the quarry site over the weekend to meet with workers and hear their complaints. Multiple workers reported that the company had withheld their passports, a common tactic used to restrict migrant worker mobility. Following the outreach, Labour Minister Keoma Griffith announced Monday that he had coordinated with the Indian High Commissioner to secure the return of all 38 passports to the workers.

Griffith confirmed that a joint multi-agency investigative team has been assembled to conduct a full on-site inquiry into the workers’ allegations, which include claims of substandard working conditions, unfair labor treatment, and violations of occupational safety and health regulations. The team includes representatives from the Ministry of Labour and Manpower Planning, the Guyana Police Force, the Ministry of Home Affairs’ Trafficking In Persons Unit, and other relevant regulatory bodies.

The EKAA HRIM quarry, which covers 1,089 acres of leased land with a 30-acre active mining pit, was formally opened by Guyanese President Irfaan Ali in September 2023. The 15-year lease includes an option for renewal at the end of the term, and the company has announced plans to invest up to $20 million in the project. At the opening ceremony, EKAA Chairman Saju Bhaskar highlighted the company’s sustainable development plans, noting that the firm intends to power the entire mining operation with on-site solar energy in line with Guyana’s national low-carbon development strategy. For his part, President Ali noted that the new domestic quarry would help address Guyana’s growing construction material shortage, which has driven rising prices and forced the country to import millions of tons of quarry material in recent years to keep pace with rapid national development.

Guyana’s Ministry of Labour has launched an official probe into claims of widespread labor and occupational safety violations at a Batavia quarry located in Region Seven, Cuyuni-Mazaruni, following public allegations raised by opposition political leaders. The development, first reported on 16 May 2026, comes as the India-headquartered quarry operator EKAA HRIM Earth Resources Management maintains that one recent employee death was caused by a heart attack, and has dismissed circulating claims as misleading.

The allegations first entered the public sphere when Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed, head of the main opposition We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party, took to social media to share accounts from individuals identifying themselves as employees of the quarry. Mohamed called on Guyanese President Irfaan Ali, who formally commissioned the quarry three years ago, to intervene immediately on behalf of a group of Indian national workers. The opposition leader claimed the workers have not received owed wages and are being prevented from leaving the country by being held of their passports, demanding a full investigation into the circumstances of one worker’s death.

“We’re calling for an investigation into what really transpired because we heard that that man worked, worked and worked till he collapsed and died of what is being called a heart attack,” Mohamed told reporters during a public appearance accompanied by former workers and other WIN party officials.

WIN General Secretary Odessa Primus doubled down on the opposition’s demands, calling for the quarry to be immediately shut down and its responsible owners prosecuted. “This is a clear human rights violation. It is sick and very disturbing to be in this day and age and have to interface with these sort of things,” Primus said.

Accounts shared by the workers have painted a grim picture of conditions at the remote quarry site. One anonymous employee alleged that basic health infrastructure is completely absent at the location, and no dedicated boat transport is available to evacuate sick or injured workers to the nearest hospital. The employee also claimed that salary payments have been delayed for multiple consecutive months, leaving workers in desperate conditions.

In video footage posted to the Team Mohamed Facebook page, a senior EKAA HRIM representative appeared to acknowledge the workers’ demands during an on-site meeting with Mohamed, confirming that workers would receive meals over the upcoming weekend and assuring that their rights would be respected. The representative stated the company would meet workers’ welfare needs ahead of their planned trip to Georgetown to meet with officials from the Indian High Commission.

In an official statement released via public relations firm Tagman Media, EKAA HRIM pushed back against the public allegations, saying it is working collaboratively with the Indian High Commission in Guyana, the Ministry of Labour and all relevant local authorities to resolve all outstanding issues with full transparency and accountability. “Verified information and supporting documentation will be shared through the appropriate channels in due course,” the company said.

The firm labeled circulating social media claims as “misleading and inaccurate”, warning that unsubstantiated reports risk sparking unnecessary public fear, confusion and misunderstanding among stakeholders and the general public. “We respectfully urge the public and all stakeholders to refrain from spreading unverified information and to allow the relevant authorities to complete their processes professionally and independently,” the statement added.

The company concluded by thanking the Guyanese government, relevant ministries, its staff, commercial partners and the public for their ongoing support, understanding and cooperation through the ongoing controversy. EKAA HRIM reaffirmed its commitment to protecting employee welfare, complying fully with Guyana’s national labor laws, and maintaining transparency across all of its domestic operations. Labour Minister Keoma Griffith confirmed the launch of the investigation in an interview with Demerara Waves Online News on Saturday, confirming that authorities are now reviewing the full set of allegations.

On Saturday, May 16, 2026, Guyana’s Ministry of Education announced the launch of a new 20-member national mathematics task force, an initiative designed to reverse longstanding underperformance in mathematics education across all school levels of the South American nation.

Heading the interdisciplinary panel is Chief Education Officer Saddam Hussain, with a deliberately diverse membership that brings together stakeholders from every corner of Guyana’s education sector. The body includes specialists drawn from each of the country’s 10 administrative regions, all Regional Education Officers, prominent academics from the University of Guyana including Mohandatt Goolsarran and Dr. Troy Brown, international educator Zamal Odeen, mathematics experts from the capital Georgetown and beyond, and representatives from Guyana’s primary teacher training institution, the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE). The task force held its inaugural session recently at the auditorium of the National Centre for Education and Research Development (NCERD) in Kingston, Georgetown.

Education Minister Sonia Parag, who formally established the task force, laid out its core mandate in opening remarks: to analyze current student performance trends across primary, secondary and tertiary education, then develop a holistic, long-lasting strategy to lift learning outcomes. A core requirement Parag imposed is full collaborative input from grassroots education workers across the country. Before any policy is finalized, the task force will travel to every administrative region to hold extensive consultations with frontline mathematics teachers and school headteachers, ensuring local buy-in and on-the-ground insight shapes the final plan.

“They have to be engaged and I want them to be in agreement with the final plan before anything is implemented,” Parag said, emphasizing that top-down policy cannot deliver meaningful change without the backing of the educators who will implement it.

Parag highlighted a critical gap that the new strategy will address: a disconnect between content expertise and instructional skill among many current mathematics educators. Many teachers hold deep knowledge of mathematics but lack the training to translate that knowledge into accessible, effective classroom learning, while others have strong teaching skills but lack sufficient mastery of advanced mathematical content, she explained. To close this gap, Parag instructed the task force to center its review on foundational teacher training and ongoing professional development, starting with reforming how trainee teachers are prepared at CPCE.

“You have teachers who have the knowledge, but they don’t know how to deliver; you have teachers who can deliver, but they don’t have the knowledge. So, we still have to align those things so that you have more teachers who have the knowledge and can also deliver in the classroom,” Parag said, clarifying that the assessment is not a criticism of working teachers, but a call for systemic improvement from the Ministry of Education itself. “It’s just saying that perhaps we at the Ministry of Education need to improve the way we are training our teachers.”

Beyond teacher training, Parag pushed for a fundamental shift in teaching philosophy, moving away from a culture focused on rote memorization and exam cramming toward deep, conceptual understanding of mathematics. True comprehension, she argued, equips students to tackle unexpected, complex problems that often appear on high-stakes assessments, rather than being thrown off course by unfamiliar question formats.

“We need to rethink whether we’re teaching children to understand mathematics or teaching them to memorize just to pass an exam. It’s something very serious because if you prepare them to understand mathematics, then even if a curveball is thrown, it’s not going to throw them off, and that is what we should be aiming for now,” she said.

The task force has also been directed to address two often-overlooked barriers to math success: student math anxiety and low foundational literacy. Parag noted that many students develop a psychological block against mathematics before they even begin learning, a mindset that teachers must actively overcome to drive progress. Additionally, literacy skills are a prerequisite for solving math problems: students cannot correctly answer a question they cannot read and interpret.

To address the literacy-math link, the Ministry of Education has already rolled out new early intervention measures, integrating literacy development into early childhood math readiness starting at the nursery school level. National literacy assessments will now be administered to students in Grades Two and Four, to identify learning gaps early and deliver targeted support before poor literacy derails math progress. “By Grade Four, all of our children must know how to read properly and comprehend well. If they can’t do that, it means they can’t answer exam questions. It means they cannot reason, which is what mathematics is – reasoning,” Parag explained.

During the inaugural meeting, task force members put forward a range of actionable proposals to boost engagement and outcomes. Suggestions included a national reward and recognition program for outstanding math students and teachers, a national mathematics competition, dedicated math clubs in every school, standardized weekly formative assessments to track student progress, classroom “math walls” displaying key formulas and concepts, and interactive, game-based learning activities aligned with current curriculum topics.

Parag acknowledged that Guyana has made incremental gains in math performance in recent years, but stressed that more urgent action is needed. She noted that poor math outcomes are a global challenge, not unique to Guyana, but that the country is committed to turning the tide locally. The minister committed to ongoing collaboration with the task force, noting that the group’s on-the-ground expertise is critical to developing a viable long-term solution.

Parag also emphasized that national investments in education infrastructure, learning resources and teacher training must be matched by strong leadership at the school level, with headteachers taking responsibility for monitoring and supporting quality classroom instruction. She also highlighted the underutilized role of Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) in building a supportive learning ecosystem that connects home and school, noting that she is traveling across the country to meet with PTAs to boost parental engagement at all education levels.

“The ministry cannot do it alone, the teachers cannot do it alone and our children cannot do it alone. Their development requires the best of all of us,” she said.

Closing the inaugural session, Parag framed the task force’s work as a definitive new starting point for mathematics education across Guyana, calling on members to craft a strategy that will chart a brighter future for generations of learners. “I want this to be a new beginning for mathematics,” she said.

On Friday, May 15, 2026, stakeholders formally commissioned and handed over 15 new community water purification installations to secondary schools across Guyana’s Region Three, marking a major milestone for the country’s landmark National Water Purification Sustainability Initiative, known as FLOW.

The cross-sector partnership delivering the project – Recover Guyana, the Greater Guyana Initiative (GGI), and Guyana’s Ministry of Education – confirmed that more than 9,000 students and teaching staff across the region will now gain consistent access to safe, purified drinking water on school campuses.

As the flagship program of the Greater Guyana Initiative, FLOW is framed as a transformative national investment that ties together educational progress and long-term environmental sustainability. Beyond expanding access to clean drinking water, the initiative also prioritizes encouraging reusable water bottle use and cutting plastic waste in school communities. Launched as a four-year national program, FLOW has set an ambitious target to serve more than 58,000 students across 141 public secondary schools, 10 technical vocational education and training (TVET) institutions, and four specialized needs schools by 2030, directly advancing global sustainable development goals.

All 15 new systems were transferred to participating school administrations between May 6 and 8, 2026. School leaders and students have already voiced gratitude for the intervention, reporting early improvements in student well-being, campus hygiene standards, household cost savings for families, and overall learning conditions.

At the official handover ceremony hosted at Tuschen Secondary School, Dr. Dave Lalltoo, Project Lead and President of Recover Guyana, highlighted that Region Three now hosts 16 completed FLOW sites when including the earlier pilot program at West Demerara Secondary School. That pilot delivered striking measurable results: it eliminated the need for more than 65,000 single-use plastic bottles in just nine months, proving the model’s viability and clearing the path for national rollout.

“Through the partnership of Recover Guyana, the Greater Guyana Initiative, the Ministry of Education, local communities, schools, technical experts, and countless hardworking individuals, Region 3 now stands as a national example of sustainable development done correctly,” Lalltoo said in remarks at the ceremony.

Alistair Routledge, President of ExxonMobil Guyana, explained that the project receives backing through the Greater Guyana Initiative – a 10-year, $100 million development commitment to Guyana from ExxonMobil Guyana, Hess, and CNOOC. “Through this initiative, we are working to support projects that improve lives, strengthen communities, and create long-term value for Guyana,” Routledge noted. “The FLOW Water Purification Sustainability Initiative is a perfect example of what that commitment looks like in action.”

Guyana’s Minister of Education Sonia Parag also praised the collaborative effort. “We believe in development through partnership, whether that is in education, agriculture, or healthcare. To witness the FLOW system firsthand and see how students are benefiting from it was truly amazing,” Parag said. “This partnership is not only about development and shared benefits, but also about innovation and sustainability, all of which improve the quality of education. It aligns directly with the Government of Guyana’s vision to strengthen education and infrastructure while creating cleaner, safer environments and communities.”

In addition to guaranteeing reliable access to clean drinking water for students, analysts project the initiative will generate substantial socioeconomic and environmental benefits for both schools and the broader Region Three community. Over a three-year period, the new installations are expected to deliver a total of $87 million in cumulative cost savings for the region.