SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 9,000 Com­mu­ni­ty­Based En­vi­ron­ment Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) con­trac­tors, foreper­sons, op­er­a­tors and labour­ers stand to ben­e­fit from a 15 per cent salary in­crease from De­cem­ber 1.

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein, un­der whose purview CEPEP falls, gave a break­down of the num­ber of CEPEP em­ploy­ees who will re­ceive big­ger salaries in a re­lease is­sued.

His com­ments came hours af­ter Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert an­nounced in his 2020 bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion of a 15 per cent pay hike for CEPEP’s en­tire work­force.

Fees paid to its con­trac­tors will al­so be in­creased by 15 per cent.

Ho­sein viewed the pro­posed salary in­creas­es as “well de­served.”

A CEPEP labour­er who earns $90 a day will now take home $103.50.

“I have al­ways ad­vo­cat­ed for CEPEP work­ers. They are some of the hard­est work­ing peo­ple I know. I can per­son­al­ly at­test to how much work they put in on a dai­ly ba­sis to keep our coun­try clean,” Ho­sein said.

Ho­sein re­called that fol­low­ing Trop­i­cal Storm Karen, CEPEP work­ers sprung in­to ac­tion to clean up com­mu­ni­ties af­fect­ed by floods.

Ho­sein com­mend­ed the work­ers for main­tain­ing their im­pres­sive work eth­ic in the face of eco­nom­ic chal­lenges.

“There are peo­ple who look down at CEPEP work­ers and the work that they do. I want to en­cour­age them to keep their heads up and con­tin­ue with their ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice,” Ho­sein said.

At the launch of Cepep’s na­tion­al coastal cleanup cam­paign in Ju­ly calls were made for bet­ter wages.

CEPEP’s gen­er­al man­ag­er Kei­th Ed­dy thanked Im­bert for in­creas­ing wages. He said it was a step in the right di­rec­tion.

Ed­dy told Guardian Me­dia in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day that last year, CEPEP’s bud­get al­lo­ca­tion was $369 mil­lion,

Ed­dy could not say what was CEPEP’s al­lo­ca­tion for 2020.