RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP), Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP), and Reaf­foresta­tion work­ers are hope­ful that the up­com­ing Bud­get will bring back jobs, af­ter the Gov­ern­ment shut down their pro­grammes ear­li­er this year to root out ghost gangs and cor­rup­tion.

Jen­nifer Mar­ryshow, who is list­ed as a di­rec­tor in Mar­ryshow Main­te­nance Lim­it­ed, which was award­ed two con­tracts val­ued at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $6.7 mil­lion be­tween March 2020 and March 2023, told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that fam­i­lies were strug­gling and the Gov­ern­ment must step in to help.

Asked what her Bud­get wish was, Mar­ryshow, who was a for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) coun­cil­lor, said: “I would like to see an in­crease in em­ploy­ment, es­pe­cial­ly for those who were ter­mi­nat­ed. I hope they are re­hired. Most of them are sin­gle par­ents, and it is re­al­ly tough.

“I want some­thing fea­si­ble that will ap­ply to sin­gle par­ents. I al­so hope that peo­ple who were not paid will get back their monies. Peo­ple are wait­ing and hop­ing to see what the Gov­ern­ment can do to as­sist.”

For­mer URP work­er Christi­na Ramdeo echoed that con­cern, say­ing she has not been able to find work de­spite re­ceiv­ing out­stand­ing pay­ments.

“I have four chil­dren, and my hus­band is a fish­er­man. It is dif­fi­cult some­times to make ends meet, but we spoke to our MP, Ernesto Ke­sar, and we got back what was owed. We are still wait­ing for an­oth­er job,” Ramdeo said.

A CEPEP work­er from Mara­bel­la, who asked not to be named, said many are sim­ply still wait­ing on clar­i­ty.

“We know the Prime Min­is­ter said the pro­grammes will be re­struc­tured. We are wait­ing to see what op­por­tu­ni­ties will come,” she added.

Trade union­ists, mean­while, are warn­ing that job cuts and wage freezes could deep­en the eco­nom­ic cri­sis.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew, leader of the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre of T&T, Michael An­nisette, stressed that the Bud­get can­not be re­duced to a tech­ni­cal ex­er­cise of bal­anc­ing rev­enue and ex­pen­di­ture. He ar­gued that a bud­get is about peo­ple, not just fig­ures or in­vestors, warn­ing that with­out work­ers, there can be no pro­duc­tiv­i­ty or eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.

He cau­tioned that cut­ting jobs and wages could push the coun­try to “an eco­nom­ic precipice.”

“We be­lieve that the pil­lar of any bud­get must be a peo­ple-cen­tered one. It must be job-led and wage-led, mean­ing that with­out jobs, you can­not grow an econ­o­my. You could in­vest as much mon­ey as you want, but if peo­ple are not hav­ing sus­tain­able jobs, if peo­ple are not hav­ing prop­er wages, fair wages, de­cent wages, your econ­o­my is go­ing to go down,” An­nisette said.

Re­mov­ing work­ers’ abil­i­ty to earn fair wages, he said, cre­ates long-term prob­lems for so­ci­ety.

Asked about the is­sues re­lat­ed to CEPEP and URP and the Gov­ern­ment lay­offs as a move to elim­i­nate ghost gangs and cor­rup­tion, An­nisette said such de­ci­sions should not rest with the Cab­i­net alone. He called for so­cial di­a­logue and a tri­par­tite ap­proach in­volv­ing all stake­hold­ers, stress­ing that de­ci­sions af­fect­ing peo­ple and so­ci­ety must be col­lab­o­ra­tive. He point­ed to in­ter­na­tion­al ex­am­ples where par­tic­i­pa­to­ry de­ci­sion-mak­ing has strength­ened eco­nom­ic mod­els.

An­nisette al­so drew at­ten­tion to un­re­solved wage dis­putes, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the port sec­tor. Dock work­ers, he not­ed, are still be­ing paid decades-old salaries de­spite a ne­go­ti­at­ed 12 per cent in­crease un­der the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment. Work­ers in Point Lisas, he said, are paid sig­nif­i­cant­ly more than those in Port-of- Spain for the same job, a dis­par­i­ty he called un­ac­cept­able. The trade union move­ment, he added, ex­pects the Gov­ern­ment to ho­n­our its promise of at least a 10 per cent set­tle­ment in the up­com­ing Bud­get, with clear time­lines to re­store trust.

De­spite crit­i­cisms of in­ef­fi­cien­cy at the port, An­nisette praised work­ers for their com­mit­ment un­der dif­fi­cult con­di­tions, in­clud­ing in­ad­e­quate in­fra­struc­ture. He re­ject­ed claims of wide­spread cor­rup­tion, say­ing bu­reau­cra­cy, not work­er mis­con­duct, is of­ten to blame. Fair wages and ac­count­abil­i­ty, he ar­gued, are key to en­sur­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and re­spect in the work­place.