KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

With over 110,000 on­line ap­pli­ca­tions for the Na­tion­al Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve, along with thou­sands of phys­i­cal sub­mis­sions, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she is not sur­prised by the re­sponse, as em­ploy­ment was one of the main pleas cit­i­zens made dur­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar vis­it­ed the re­cruit­ment cen­tre at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Velo­drome in Cou­va yes­ter­day, where scores of peo­ple con­tin­ued to ap­ply for pub­lic sec­tor jobs.

“I have been on the ground, all of us on the ground, and two things peo­ple want­ed main­ly: jobs, and they want­ed to be safe. They want­ed to be safe and se­cure. We are work­ing on the end of those things, so I am not sur­prised,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar told re­porters.

Greet­ing staff and ap­pli­cants, she said she was pleased that the Gov­ern­ment was cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for cit­i­zens. She was ac­com­pa­nied by Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John, Min­is­ter of Labour Leroy Bap­tiste, Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence Do­minic Smith, and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Dar­rell Al­la­har.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said while there may not be 90,000 jobs im­me­di­ate­ly avail­able, her ad­min­is­tra­tion will de­liv­er on its promise in phas­es. The first 20,450 va­can­cies will be filled grad­u­al­ly, with more to fol­low.

She ex­plained that when she de­cid­ed to end the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme and Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme, which she de­scribed as “a form of slav­ery,” she had not yet de­vel­oped a re­place­ment plan. De­ter­mined to find a so­lu­tion, she asked Cab­i­net min­is­ters to iden­ti­fy va­can­cies in their min­istries. The re­sults, she said, were eye-open­ing.

“Some peo­ple were up­set with me for shut­ting down CEPEP and URP. You could not go with a CEPEP job to the bank and get a mort­gage to buy a prop­er house, or a car, or send your child to uni­ver­si­ty. That was just hand-to-mouth feed­ing. It was a kind of slav­ery. That is the way I saw it, and I was very de­ter­mined.  I would not put peo­ple through that kind of slav­ery, and some mem­bers of my Cab­i­net fought me.”

She re­mained res­olute that the new ini­tia­tive would work, say­ing she would keep min­is­ters ac­count­able to en­sure de­liv­ery. The first phase tar­gets pub­lic sec­tor jobs, with plans to part­ner with the pri­vate sec­tor to cre­ate more em­ploy­ment, even for the skilled and un­der­skilled.

The Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture has about 1,700 va­can­cies for dai­ly-rat­ed work­ers, while the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment al­so has thou­sands avail­able.

“Good things hap­pen, and I think this is a very good thing for our coun­try. Most of the peo­ple com­ing here seem to be younger ones, en­try-lev­el ap­pli­cants, and young grad­u­ates. It’s an op­por­tu­ni­ty that should not be wast­ed. For those who haven’t yet ap­plied, there are oth­er venues open across the coun­try and on­line.”

John said the re­cruit­ment dri­ve, which be­gan on Sun­day, clos­es at mid­night, af­ter which em­ploy­ees will re­view ap­pli­ca­tions so in­ter­views can be­gin on Mon­day at the velo­drome. She not­ed that even em­ployed peo­ple were ap­ply­ing, and there would be op­por­tu­ni­ties for them as well.