DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs (MSYA) has grant­ed a one-month con­tract ex­ten­sion to 114 em­ploy­ees of the Civil­ian Con­ser­va­tion Corps (CCC), al­low­ing them to re­main in their posts un­til Au­gust 31, as the pro­gramme re­mains un­der Cab­i­net re­view.

An of­fer let­ter ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia con­firms the arrange­ment is strict­ly short-term and car­ries no en­ti­tle­ment to va­ca­tion or sick leave.

The ex­ten­sion comes as the CCC, along with oth­er mil­i­tary-led youth ini­tia­tives, has been of­fi­cial­ly trans­ferred to the Min­istry of De­fence but re­mains in tran­si­tion. Salaries con­tin­ue to be processed by the MSYA un­til new bud­get al­lo­ca­tions are fi­nalised.

A se­nior MSYA of­fi­cial ex­plained yes­ter­day that the min­istry re­mains the ac­count­ing agency un­til the new fis­cal year in Oc­to­ber, when “heads of ex­pen­di­ture” will be up­dat­ed.

How­ev­er, de­ci­sion-mak­ing au­thor­i­ty over the pro­gramme now rests with the Min­istry of De­fence, which is un­der Wayne Sturge.

The of­fi­cial point­ed to the on­go­ing Cab­i­net-or­dered re­view of mil­i­tary-led youth ini­tia­tives—in­clud­ing CCC, the Mil­i­tary-Led Aca­d­e­m­ic Train­ing Pro­gramme (Mi­LAT), and the Mil­i­tary-Led Youth Pro­gramme of Ap­pren­tice­ship and Re­ori­en­ta­tion Train­ing (MY­PART). That re­view was or­dered un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion. A pre­lim­i­nary re­port has been cir­cu­lat­ed, but a fi­nal Cab­i­net de­ci­sion has not yet been made.

While some CCC ini­tia­tives have paused dur­ing the re­view, the of­fi­cial said this was due to ad­min­is­tra­tive de­lays rather than any di­rect in­ter­ven­tion by the new Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment.

A se­nior CCC of­fi­cial, speak­ing un­der con­di­tion of anonymi­ty yes­ter­day con­firmed that on­ly 42 po­si­tions are ex­pect­ed to re­main from Sep­tem­ber 1 to han­dle pay­roll, se­cure equip­ment, and pre­pare for the next in­take of trainees.

The of­fi­cial al­so raised con­cerns about the po­ten­tial im­pact of pro­longed in­ac­tiv­i­ty on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and youth de­vel­op­ment, re­call­ing a pe­ri­od from 1999 to 2002 when the pro­gramme was dor­mant.

“When the CCC pro­gramme was shut down, there was a spike in crime. This pro­gramme is a proac­tive mea­sure against crime, giv­ing vul­ner­a­ble youth an op­tion oth­er than get­ting in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties,” the of­fi­cial said.

The of­fi­cial al­so re­ject­ed claims that staff had been in­ac­tive since the pro­gramme was sus­pend­ed.

“Those ac­cu­sa­tions are er­ro­neous and un­in­formed,” the of­fi­cial said, adding that staff have re­mained en­gaged in re­cruit­ment, school gar­den­ing and youth de­vel­op­ment projects since the last grad­u­a­tion in No­vem­ber 2024.

The of­fi­cial

Nei­ther the Min­is­ters of Sport and Youth Af­fairs nor De­fence re­spond­ed to re­quests for com­ment.

How­ev­er, on Sun­day, Sturge told Guardian me­dia that the pro­gramme was not be­ing shut down but said the Gov­ern­ment could no longer jus­ti­fy pay­ing out $2.5 mil­lion in month­ly salary to the CCC staff. His clar­i­fi­ca­tion came af­ter Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that 72 of the pro­gramme’s 114 em­ploy­ees had had their con­tracts end­ed on Ju­ly 31.

Sturge said be­fore the work­ers’ con­tracts ex­pired, he met with Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs Phillip Watts and his per­ma­nent sec­re­tary to dis­cuss the mat­ter and the de­ci­sion on the way for­ward was made at that time.

Sturge said the process to trans­fer CCC to his min­istry’s purview will be com­plet­ed soon.

How­ev­er, he said they were look­ing at mak­ing ad­just­ments to the pro­gramme which would see it be­ing mar­ried with a plan from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to cater to stu­dents who are ex­pelled from school.

“The youth need to know that they have noth­ing to wor­ry (about). But the bal­anc­ing act at this point is whether we can jus­ti­fy to tax­pay­ers that we are bleed­ing two point some­thing (mil­lion) a month and there are no stu­dents there. I don’t think the tax­pay­ers will be hap­py to hear that,” Sturge said then.