Contractors and employees who have been with the Community-based Environmental Protection and Enhancement Programme (CEPEP) for the past five years may soon face the threat of dismissal, Public Utilities Minister Ancil Antoine said yesterday.
He made the announcement following a meeting with newly-appointed members of the CEPEP board at the Ministry of Public Utilities, Woodbrook, saying the board had been mandated to undertake an immediate review of all contracts and make a determination on the way forward. No deadlines have been set for this exercise to be completed though.
Antoine also promised that an audit would be done into CEPEP's operations during the past five years.
The decision also follows on the heels of a recent announcement by the Housing Development Corporation to review the CEPEP contracts issued under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development.
CEPEP chairman Trevor Lynch confirmed that advertisements were placed in the newspapers within the last two weeks, advising people to submit their applications within the stipulated time frame.
During the media briefing yesterday, Antoine said each application would be carefully vetted and "if it was not in keeping with the original concept of CEPEP, you should no longer be in CEPEP."
Pointing out that CEPEP was originally introduced to help create entrepreneurs, he said, "The original concept of CEPEP was one where entrepreneurs from the community were supposed to be created using the format of the CEPEP contract and after a period of time, these entrepreneurs would be able to move into the private sector and cease being CEPEP contractors."
He said the board had been asked to review contracts to see if this had in fact been happening.
"If you have been a CEPEP contractor for five-plus years you should no longer be in CEPEP," he said.
"You should have moved on into a new phase in the process of being an entrepreneur. You should now be able to function in the private environment and now be an entrepreneur and be a businessman or businesswoman."
Pressed to say how many people were facing a possible axe, Antoine said he was unable to provide an exact figure.
Instead, he said, "The situation will have to be reviewed and given the price of oil...the Prime Minister has already indicated that he is looking at CEPEP and URP and if downsizing is necessary, it would be done."
Sidestepping the question of ghost gangs and how they intended to tackle the issue, Antoine said he was not aware of any such groups existing within the organistion.
On the plans by Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley to elevate CEPEP workers from performing only roadside cleaning operations to agricultural development, Antoine said, "There are different parts of CEPEP as there are persons who work in utilities and those in agriculture."
Revealing plans to stimulate economic activity and generate revenue with the creation of teak and mahogany forests, the minister said, "Part of the new concept of CEPEP would be identifying areas in T&T where we can put forward proposals for the future development of T&T."
CEPEP was allocated just over $600 million to conduct operations for the period 2015/2016 and Antoine said while it was not enough, it would have to do as they sought to re-focus and re-tool the future of the company.
Meanwhile, Antoine said the cause of Tuesday's fire at the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) head office in St Joseph remained unknown as investigations were continuing.
Asked to provide an update, he assured that while no employees were sent home as a result, the blaze had inconvenienced members of the public as the building remained closed.
Having visited the scene shortly after the blaze broke out, Antoine said no one would be allowed to re-enter the structure until the all-clear was given by the fire officials.
Claiming that he had been kept abreast of what has been happening, Antoine refused to speculate on whether or not the fire had been deliberately set in a bid to destroy evidence which could incriminate certain contractors hired by WASA in the past.
Questioned about the possible loss of sensitive files, documents and electronic evidence, Antoine assured that back-up files were kept at various locations.