Leah So­rias

Mem­bers of a new­ly-formed as­so­ci­a­tion, com­pris­ing some 500 Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship ac­tivists, are call­ing on the par­ty to pro­vide them with jobs. Mem­bers of the the group–So­cial Ground Troops As­so­ci­a­tion–feel they were side­lined for jobs af­ter the PP came in­to Gov­ern­ment. "The PP has not lived up to the man­date that was giv­en to it," UNC ac­tivist Juli­et Davy said dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers' head­quar­ters, Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. "Their man­date was not on­ly to fix crime but to con­tin­ue the process of re­mov­ing mid­dle man­age­ment PNM op­er­a­tives who would be on state boards and they have not done that," she said.

She said the front­line ac­tivists of the par­ty should have been giv­en jobs with­in those state boards. She added: "It is not that we were promised jobs but I want to look at it as right of pas­sage. "We have con­tributed to what has tak­en place now...this vic­to­ry the PP now en­joys is a vic­to­ry as a re­sult of the hard work peo­ple like my­self have put in." She said she found it un­fair that per­sons who were screened to be PNM can­di­dates pri­or to this year's gen­er­al elec­tion now held "high po­si­tions" in Gov­ern­ment while die-hard PP ac­tivists were un­able to feed their fam­i­lies. She said the mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion would be un­able to send their chil­dren to school when the term start­ed on Mon­day be­cause they have been with­out jobs for years, since the tenure of the PNM Gov­ern­ment.

She said those ac­tivists "could not even get a ten-day job with the PNM". She said some of the ac­tivists thought that when the PP came in­to pow­er they would have been giv­en "in­ter­im" jobs with­in the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lied Pro­gramme (URP) to sus­tain their fam­i­lies un­til bet­ter jobs were pro­vid­ed but that was not so. Davy said: "We can­not play games any­more be­cause this is a re­al is­sue and we have to take it head-on in or­der to bring it to a halt im­me­di­ate­ly. "Don't tell me that you are re­ward­ing peo­ple with mer­i­to­r­i­al ser­vice and with com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice be­cause I served both in com­mu­ni­ty and in par­ty but who re­wards me?" she asked. She said front-line ac­tivists, like Lynette Abra­ham, Nor­man Fred­er­ick and Lennox Smith should be give the po­si­tions owed to them.

"When Gov­ern­ment changed hands ac­tivists had ex­pect­ed Gov­ern­ment would have re­moved the ap­pointees who were there be­fore, and they would have been able to place our peo­ple in those po­si­tions," she said. "We are dis­sat­is­fied that af­ter three months those peo­ple are there and our peo­ple are still out­side in the cold," Davy added. She added that the mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion felt like they were in "no-man's land" dur­ing the last ad­min­is­tra­tion and when the PP came in­to of­fice they found it un­ac­cept­able that they were still in that same po­si­tion. "There is no con­crete po­si­tion from any min­is­ter as to jobs for us. It is a prob­lem of or­gan­i­sa­tion and struc­ture that is why we put to­geth­er this as­so­ci­a­tion," she said. "Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there is room for all but so far we have not been able to go in­to that room," Davy added.