Ke­jan Haynes

News­gath­er­ing Ed­i­tor

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says her Gov­ern­ment’s sus­pen­sion of the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) and re­view of the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) has trig­gered push­back from what she de­scribed as the “deep state” and “the bel­ly of the un­der­world.

Speak­ing at the par­ty’s meet­ing in Cou­va on Mon­day night, she said the mea­sures, aimed at in­ves­ti­gat­ing and dis­man­tling cor­rup­tion, had un­earthed “a re­sis­tance that reach­es far and wide.”

“They will hire lawyers. They will use their po­lit­i­cal prox­ies. They will call in favours from in­flu­en­tial busi­ness peo­ple and their me­dia con­tacts. And they will re­sort to go­ing af­ter any­one who leads or is in­volved in this crack­down … They’ve al­ready made threats to Khadi­jah (Ameen), to Fer­oz (Khan), to Bar­ry (Padarath). But I say nev­er fear be­cause Kam­la is here.”

Mes­sages to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro and Min­is­ters Padarath and Ameen went unan­swered yes­ter­day.

The Prime Min­is­ter linked the re­view of CEPEP and URP to her ad­min­is­tra­tion’s plans for more sus­tain­able em­ploy­ment.

“They do that be­cause they want­ed to give you make-work pro­grammes … an­oth­er kind of slav­ery … Imag­ine peo­ple work­ing in CEPEP for 10 years at min­i­mum wage. We have a man­date to fill all the va­can­cies across the pub­lic ser­vice, to cre­ate more mean­ing­ful jobs … so you don’t get stuck in a CEPEP syn­drome for 10 years. That puts you in an op­pressed po­si­tion.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has pre­vi­ous­ly re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the can­cel­la­tion of CEPEP and URP con­tracts was linked to the State of Emer­gency (SoE) de­clared on Ju­ly 18.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing a town hall meet­ing in Siparia on Ju­ly 30, she said the SoE was called to dis­rupt “a planned at­tack em­a­nat­ing from the pris­ons to strike at in­sti­tu­tions of the jus­tice sys­tem and crit­i­cal or­gans of the State,” which in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cials had iden­ti­fied as im­mi­nent.

“The SoE was not trig­gered as a panacea to ad­dress­ing crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty in T&T per se,” she said. “We moved swift­ly to neu­tralise this threat on the morn­ing of the 18th Ju­ly.”

Her com­ments fol­lowed ques­tions about whether the wide­spread can­cel­la­tion of so­cial pro­gramme con­tracts could have pro­voked a back­lash by crim­i­nal gangs seek­ing to re­gain ac­cess to State funds.

She ac­knowl­edged that crim­i­nal el­e­ments had in­fil­trat­ed CEPEP, URP and the reaf­foresta­tion pro­gramme, but she main­tained the tim­ing of the emer­gency mea­sures was not tied to those re­forms.

“The make-work pro­grammes, our in­tel sources have in­di­cat­ed, are part of the feed­ing trough for crim­i­nals. They are un­der re­view as part of our larg­er plans to stem the tide of crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty.”

Gov­ern­ment sus­pend­ed CEPEP op­er­a­tions and be­gan re­cal­i­brat­ing URP last month as part of its an­ti-cor­rup­tion ini­tia­tive.

Kam­la: Clean in front of your homes

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so crit­i­cised sev­er­al sto­ries car­ried by CNC3 news, which showed res­i­dents com­plain­ing about the state of their ar­eas af­ter the clo­sure of CEPEP. She said she was shocked to see peo­ple com­plain­ing about the poor state of grass in front of their own homes, call­ing on the pub­lic to take per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their sur­round­ings.

“Who dump­ing that? Ghosts? Is it not hu­man be­ings dump­ing in their own neigh­bour­hood? If you can­not clean in front of your own house, heav­en help us. Some of us have be­come too lazy, too lazy and greedy. Cut the grass in front of your own home … We are hu­man be­ings in Trinidad and To­ba­go, not an­i­mals. So clean up your waste.”

She said she had in­struct­ed At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, SC, to “get the law work­ing” to “bring back” the lit­ter war­dens against of­fend­ers, adding, “as the AG al­ways tells us, he says, ‘I’m com­ing for you’… who­ev­er you may be, dump­ing all over the coun­try.”