Sto­ries by Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­it­er­at­ed her Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to tack­ling cor­rup­tion in the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP), fol­low­ing the re­cent ter­mi­na­tion of 400 work­ers.

Speak­ing with re­porters out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the move was part of a broad­er ef­fort to clean up state-fund­ed em­ploy­ment schemes and en­sure tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey is be­ing used re­spon­si­bly.

“We can­not con­tin­ue this. What is even more im­por­tant is that in­tel­li­gence com­ing from the TTPS and oth­er pro­tec­tive ser­vices is not just about the cor­rup­tion and ghost gangs, it is the in­fil­tra­tion by crim­i­nal el­e­ments, and as you know, I am to­tal­ly against any crim­i­nal­i­ty at any stage. Maybe you’ll say we can’t stop it from the days of Adam and Eve but we have to do all we can to root out crim­i­nal­i­ty.”

On Wednes­day, the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment ter­mi­nat­ed 400 em­ploy­ees across 12 re­gion­al of­fices. Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen said the move was part of a re­struc­tur­ing ef­fort to elim­i­nate long­stand­ing cor­rup­tion, in­clud­ing “ghost gangs” and in­di­vid­u­als who were paid with­out work­ing. She main­tained that the ini­tia­tive was not po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed, but nec­es­sary to re­store in­tegri­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty with­in the pro­gramme.

San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning has since fired back, say­ing that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) lawyers will take the Gov­ern­ment to court over what he de­scribed as the “un­just” dis­missals of the work­ers.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar as­sured that her ad­min­is­tra­tion is equal­ly fo­cused on cre­at­ing new job op­por­tu­ni­ties for those af­fect­ed.

“We do have sev­er­al mea­sures go­ing for­ward for cre­at­ing jobs and the bud­get, which will be com­ing up soon, we will give more de­tails, but we don’t in­tend to dis­miss these per­sons as has hap­pened with CEPEP and URP. We do have plans for job cre­ation,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

The mass fir­ings, which af­fect­ed 12 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, have drawn sharp crit­i­cism from trade unions and mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion.

Al­so speak­ing with re­porters out­side the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les said she was not con­fi­dent about the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed plans to re­hire work­ers who faced the chop­ping block.

“Let us ac­cept the fact that the vul­ner­a­ble per­sons work­ing at URP and CEPEP, they can’t pay rent, buy school­books, buy uni­form, and ba­sic sup­plies. The truth is, even if you ar­gue there are per­sons who you claim are in­volved in some sort of il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty, what about the oth­ers? We know it’s thou­sands of peo­ple that are em­ployed in URP and CEPEP who de­pend on the salaries. We want a fair day’s work and a fair day’s pay.”

Beck­les al­so ac­knowl­edged that she does not con­done cor­rup­tion, but chal­lenged the Gov­ern­ment to be more trans­par­ent about the de­ci­sion and pro­vide the ev­i­dence to the pub­lic.

“If you have those facts and that is ab­solute­ly true, then we are await­ing for them to give us prop­er de­tails, and if that is so, you take the ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to Beck­les, the re­cent fir­ings at URP aligned with what she said was the Gov­ern­ment’s “pat­tern of dis­missals.”

“It is con­sis­tent with the ac­tiv­i­ties we have seen with the Gov­ern­ment. I mean, you start­ed with WASA, sent home WASA work­ers at the lead­er­ship lev­el, you didn’t al­lege cor­rup­tion. Then you have CEPEP, Land Set­tle­ment Agency, re­cent­ly we have peo­ple from Her­itage at a se­nior lev­el re­sign­ing, you have the gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank, so URP to me is one of the mul­ti­plic­i­ty of in­ter­ven­tions you are see­ing from the Gov­ern­ment.”

Al­so ad­dress­ing the is­sue, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath took the Op­po­si­tion Leader to task for be­ing part of a gov­ern­ment that over­saw the pro­lif­er­a­tion of the al­leged cor­rupt prac­tices.

“The au­thor­i­ties were al­so rais­ing these mat­ters with the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion, which had been in pow­er for over nine and a half years, and al­lowed this to flour­ish un­der them, and that is why the crime has run away. The gangs had felt as though they were em­pow­ered be­cause they were re­ceiv­ing fund­ing from the state.”

The min­is­ter main­tained that the Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to weed out cor­rup­tion across all agen­cies to pre­vent the haem­or­rhag­ing of tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars.