Chinese Whispers and Arithmetic 101: The Four Seasons Project

The saga of the Four Seasons luxury resort project takes on another twist. Today's Sunday Sun reports and interview with Michael Pemberton and Robin Paterson, executive directors of the developers, Cinnamon 88, talking about dealing with the labour shortage. (The picture shows Mr. Pemberton with a plan of the project.) The project is now two months behind schedule, with the search still on to find the 200 workers needed to start this US$ 380 million project. This search has already created a huge furore about "cheap labour" when it was discovered that many Chinese workers were already on site and working, apparently without having properly completing the process for work permits. We now read that 57 Chinese and 33 Barbadians are employed. By December the project is supposed to need 500 workers, and 800 by the time that peak construction is reached in mid-2008.

Several aspects of how the project has reached such an unhappy state regarding its search for workers are hard to understand. Now we have to struggle with another possible confusion, or cause for concern. I have to wonder if the smoke and mirrors are getting too much. Like the game of Chinese Whispers, perhaps things get lost in the retelling. The paper reports that job adverts have gone out locally and regionally. It reports that "In June, the developers received 40 applications, with 34 people being interviewed. Of these, 22 were successful." It then adds that Labour Department officers were present for the interviews. Mr. Paterson is quoted as saying: "More than 50 per cent of the people who came for interview are working in Barbados illegally...We agreed with the Labour Department that we will only employ those who are legal."

Now if at least 18 people interviewed were illegal, leaving no more than 16 legal, how could the company employ 22? What did the Labour Department do about the 18 plus people who were found to be working illegally in Barbados? Perhaps the reporter will offer more information subsequently. In the meantime, I imagine that more skeptism will be raised about what is really going on. With the best will in the world, it's hard to say that anyone has a clear idea of what officials and the company are really doing.