The Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Khadi­jah Ameen, says con­trary to so­cial me­dia re­ports on a leaked Cab­i­net Note, the new Na­tion­al Pro­gramme for the Up­keep of Pub­lic Spaces is not a CEPEP re­place­ment.

In a state­ment is­sued late Thurs­day evening, Min­is­ter Ameen con­firmed a new pro­gramme had been launched to up­keep com­mu­ni­ty spaces but ex­plained it, “Is a fresh, re­sults-dri­ven ini­tia­tive de­signed to strength­en man­pow­er at Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions, pay a de­cent wage, and op­er­ate with­out po­lit­i­cal mid­dle­men, pa­tron­age, or crim­i­nal el­e­ments, as was as­so­ci­at­ed with CEPEP.”

Yes­ter­day, a copy of a doc­u­ment pur­port­ed to be a leaked Cab­i­net Note showed a new pro­gramme meant to em­ploy cit­i­zens and main­tain com­mu­ni­ty spaces be­ing tout­ed as a re­place­ment to the now de­funct Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme. At the end of June, all 300-plus con­trac­tors were ter­mi­nat­ed, which re­sult­ed in an es­ti­mat­ed 10,000 work­ers they had hired be­ing left with­out jobs.

Yes­ter­day evening, Min­is­ter Ameen said that the Up­keep of Pub­lic Spaces Pro­gramme is ground­ed in the UNC’s phi­los­o­phy, un­der Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, that the Gov­ern­ment must de­liv­er re­sults with trans­paren­cy and in­tegri­ty.

Ameen ex­plained that work­ers will be hired di­rect­ly through the min­istry, which re­moves po­lit­i­cal in­ter­me­di­aries and elim­i­nates ghost gangs. She said teams will be as­signed to mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions with prop­er at­ten­dance records, per­for­mance checks, and fi­nan­cial con­trols, en­sur­ing com­mu­ni­ties re­ceive tan­gi­ble, mea­sur­able work. This ini­tia­tive fo­cus­es on the sus­tain­able up­keep of recre­ation grounds, ceme­ter­ies, pub­lic spaces, and com­mu­ni­ty fa­cil­i­ties. The min­is­ter said it sup­ports lo­cal gov­ern­ment bod­ies with the tools and man­pow­er they need to prop­er­ly serve res­i­dents. Ameen ad­vised the pub­lic that the pro­gramme is a pi­lot project, and dis­cus­sions con­tin­ue with rel­e­vant unions, mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties, and oth­er stake­hold­ers to im­prove and ex­pand the min­istry’s de­liv­ery in Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment.

Since the clo­sure of CEPEP, cit­i­zens have com­plained that parks, and oth­er ar­eas in com­mu­ni­ties all around the coun­try are not be­ing main­tained and have be­come an eye­sore.