Kevon Felmine

The Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion's (HDC) "Colour Me Or­ange" pro­gramme suf­fered an­oth­er blow yes­ter­day when work­ers and res­i­dents at the Mon Re­pos Hous­ing Com­plex clashed over jobs.Some 50 res­i­dents, who said they went to the HDC's of­fice in San Fer­nan­do to in­quire about their ap­pli­ca­tions for em­ploy­ment in the pro­gramme, claimed they were threat­ened by work­ers al­ready em­ployed.

One res­i­dent, Bon­nie Mar­shall, said one of the work­ers threat­ened him with a cut­lass.The Mon Re­pos res­i­dents claim they were left out of the pro­gramme.They said they ap­plied for "Colour Me Or­ange" jobs and were shocked to see per­sons from Port-of-Spain and Ch­agua­nas in or­ange at­tire at work on build­ings in their apart­ment com­plex.

How­ev­er, HDC's chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer (CEO) Jear­lean John dis­missed the res­i­dents' claims that out­siders were work­ing in their area.She said all the per­sons on that job site were from San Fer­nan­do."We are still pro­cess­ing ap­pli­ca­tions, so it can­not be that no one has got­ten any jobs in that area," said John, who main­tained that peo­ple from San Fer­nan­do would be em­ployed in their ar­eas, once they have reg­is­tered at the HDC's of­fice.

"So far on­ly 1,500 per­son have been em­ployed and we are tak­ing in a fur­ther 500 who may come from San Fer­nan­do. This project is cen­tred on the HDC com­mu­ni­ty. The peo­ple in Mon Re­pos will be hired to do work in Mon Re­pos," she ex­plained.John said HDC would be do­ing reg­is­tra­tions on Mon­day and Tues­day for per­sons from Pleas­antville, Em­ba­cadere, Mon Re­pos and oth­er de­vel­op­ments in San Fer­nan­do.

Coun­cil­lor for Mon Re­pos/Navet, Sha­ka Joseph, said most of the res­i­dents who made com­plaints were for­mer CEPEP em­ploy­ees who had been un­em­ployed since Ju­ly. He es­ti­mat­ed that some 80 fam­i­lies were af­fect­ed.He added: "We are try­ing to en­sure that every­one from Mon Re­pos can eat a food so that peo­ple can get some­thing for Christ­mas. "Now the CEPEP pro­gramme is cut off, half of them are look­ing for some­thing to do and this is the on­ly way they are see­ing for­ward right now."