RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The con­tracts of hun­dreds of Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) con­trac­tors were ter­mi­nat­ed yes­ter­day, leav­ing over 10,000 work­ers on the bread­line.

The ter­mi­na­tion came days af­ter the Gov­ern­ment an­nounced its plans to con­duct a full au­dit of the pro­gramme’s as­sets, con­tracts and op­er­a­tions.

In a let­ter ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, CEPEP CEO Kei­th Ed­dy ter­mi­nat­ed the con­trac­tors, stat­ing that the agree­ment dat­ed March 21, 2023, was be­ing end­ed ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ate­ly. He said con­trac­tors will re­ceive one month’s pay in lieu of the no­tice and they were asked to re­turn com­pa­ny prop­er­ty with­in sev­en days.

Some con­trac­tors re­ceived of­fi­cial let­ters at CEPEP’s head­quar­ters in Ste Madeleine yes­ter­day, af­ter go­ing there for more in­for­ma­tion when the ter­mi­na­tion let­ter be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing on­line.

One per­son who iden­ti­fied her­self as a CEPEP field of­fi­cer con­firmed the con­trac­tors were ter­mi­nat­ed with im­me­di­ate ef­fect. She said this meant that from Mon­day, over 10,500 CEPEP work­ers would be with­out jobs.

The work­er urged Gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er the many work­ers who would be af­fect­ed by the move. Not­ing many of them are sin­gle moth­ers, she urged the Gov­ern­ment not to politi­cise the mat­ter.

Re­spond­ing to the ter­mi­na­tions last night, how­ev­er, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath said there are over 300 con­trac­tors whose con­tracts the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion re­newed for a pe­ri­od of three years in the build-up to the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

“Ex­pen­di­ture in the amount of mil­lions should have had Cab­i­net ap­proval. How­ev­er, in a haste to se­cure friends, fam­i­lies and fi­nanciers with CEPEP con­tracts for a fur­ther three years ahead of the Gen­er­al Elec­tion of 2025, the for­mer gov­ern­ment act­ed against the in­ter­est and wel­fare of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go and sought their own in­ter­est,” Padarath said.

He not­ed, “We are fol­low­ing due process. The Ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al guid­ed this process. All con­trac­tors have been ter­mi­nat­ed af­ter a thor­ough re­view. The com­pa­ny must re­turn to its core man­date. At this time, we are eval­u­at­ing how CEPEP can be tran­si­tioned for more sus­tain­able ac­tiv­i­ty.”

Last week, Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen had al­so raised con­cerns about the CEPEP pro­gramme. She said of the $60 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed to CEPEP, $3.5 mil­lion was used to lease an un­used build­ing al­leged­ly tied to a for­mer se­nior min­is­ter’s rel­a­tive. She said over 360 con­tracts were al­so re­newed just days be­fore the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion with­out Cab­i­net ap­proval.

In his 2025 Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert had an­nounced an in­crease of the min­i­mum wage to $22.50 and an in­crease of $340 to 6,900 CEPEP work­ers. At that time, he said this in­crease would have cost tax­pay­ers $75 mil­lion.

Out­cry on so­cial me­dia

As news broke of the ter­mi­nat­ed con­tracts, Op­po­si­tion PNM MPs spoke out.

Re­spond­ing in a Face­book post, San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning ex­pressed con­cern, stat­ing, “It is with great sad­ness that I learned to­day of the ter­mi­na­tion of em­ploy­ment of CEPEP con­trac­tors, as well as those who have found tem­po­rary re­lief from this pro­gramme.”

He added, “To the hard­work­ing cit­i­zens who were ter­mi­nat­ed to­day as part of broad changes made by the new ad­min­is­tra­tion to the CEPEP pro­gramme, I’d like to per­son­al­ly ex­press my thanks to you. I share your con­cerns and I am here to de­fend your in­ter­ests.”

Mean­while, Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Symon de No­bri­ga ex­pressed sym­pa­thy for the con­trac­tors.

“This move has ef­fec­tive­ly put over 10,500 men and women out of work. Fa­thers, moth­ers, sin­gle par­ents, and bread­win­ners are now left with­out a source of in­come. This is po­lit­i­cal ret­ri­bu­tion be­ing met­ed out to those per­ceived to be sup­port­ers of the PNM.”

De No­bri­ga al­so point­ed to re­marks in Par­lia­ment by the Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen, who said “re­al work­ers” had noth­ing to fear, call­ing them a veiled threat.

For­mer For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne called the de­ci­sion abrupt, say­ing it would “neg­a­tive­ly af­fect com­mu­ni­ties across our na­tion.” He added, “This is not a win for Trinidad and To­ba­go.”