Nepo­tism and un­law­ful ac­tiv­i­ty are to be blamed for the ter­mi­na­tion of 47 Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (Cepep) con­trac­tors. De­fend­ing the de­ci­sion to dis­miss the con­trac­tors, Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said for too long Cepep was al­lowed to op­er­ate with­out trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty. Re­spond­ing in Par­lia­ment to Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Don­na Cox that Gov­ern­ment re­neged on its com­mit­ment re­gard­ing the pro­gramme send­ing more than 2,500 peo­ple on the bread­line, Mooni­lal said: "Many of the con­trac­tors were in­volved in crime while oth­ers were friends and fam­i­lies who got con­tracts. Imag­ine, even Gen­er­al Coun­cil mem­bers got Cepep con­tracts. When the pro­gramme was launched in Moru­ga it was de­signed for three years; it was nev­er agreed for con­trac­tors to be em­ployed for eight years. Some ar­eas in T&T do not even know what a Cepep shirt looks like."

Cox fur­ther claimed that Cepep con­tracts are now be­ing used as bait for the up­com­ing in­ter­nal Con­gress of The Peo­ple elec­tion. How­ev­er, Mooni­lal dis­missed the claim stat­ing that the names of some of the ter­mi­nat­ed con­trac­tors were close­ly aligned to the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion. Mooni­lal said from May 2011 to present, Cepep has cre­at­ed jobs for 11,000 peo­ple with the es­tab­lish­ment of the Un­em­ploy­ment Bu­reau in Ch­agua­nas, a unit set up for en­list­ing un­em­ployed cit­i­zens. The min­is­ter said Cepep was now mov­ing to part­ner with the Min­istry of Sci­ence and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion to en­rol skilled work­ers with the On The Job Train­ing pro­gramme. In ad­di­tion, Mooni­lal said, with­in the next few days Cepep will be launch­ing a ma­rine pro­gramme to en­sure the beach­es and rivers through­out T&T are well kept.