Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has chal­lenged the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC)-led coali­tion gov­ern­ment to pro­duce ev­i­dence of wrong­do­ing in the Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP).

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and sev­er­al of her MPs is­sued the chal­lenge af­ter meet­ing with scores of re­cent­ly ter­mi­nat­ed CEPEP con­trac­tors at the Lisas Gar­dens Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre in Cou­va yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Arou­ca/Lopinot MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les, who led the press con­fer­ence that fol­lowed the meet­ing, claimed the gov­ern­ment had been mak­ing spu­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions and spread­ing mis­in­for­ma­tion against for­mer gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and pub­lic of­fi­cers about the pro­cure­ment of con­tracts for the so­cial pro­gramme.

He not­ed that all con­tracts were grant­ed with the ap­proval of CEPEP’s board and ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment and with­in the pro­vi­sions of pub­lic pro­cure­ment reg­u­la­tions.

Gon­za­les said: “If they have any ev­i­dence that these things were breached, come for­ward and say so. You can­not just come for­ward and make state­ments to mis­lead your sup­port­ers and throw red meat at them. It is sim­ply not true.

“It is just sim­ply a lie. They have not of­fered one scin­til­la of ev­i­dence to sug­gest any wrong­do­ing on the part of any pub­lic of­fi­cial. Not one io­ta of ev­i­dence. It is just peo­ple spew­ing non­sense to mis­lead the pub­lic.”

Gon­za­les sound­ly re­ject­ed claims that he and his for­mer Cab­i­net col­leagues took sim­i­lar ac­tion against CEPEP con­trac­tors that re­ceived their con­tracts and re­newals un­der the tenure of the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion be­tween 2010 and 2015.

“It is sim­ply not true for any­one to say at this point in time that the PNM gov­ern­ment did any­thing sim­i­lar to that. It has nev­er hap­pened. The PNM ho­n­oured all of these con­tracts even though they were ex­tend­ed on the cusp of the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tions,” Gon­za­les said.

Beck­les said she and her col­leagues were not sur­prised by the ac­tions of their suc­ces­sors in gov­ern­ment.

“This is con­sis­tent. This is not un­usu­al. This is ex­pect­ed,” Beck­les said.

Not­ing that her par­ty had as­sem­bled a team of at­tor­neys in­clud­ing MPs to pro­vide free le­gal ad­vice and rep­re­sen­ta­tion to the af­fect­ed con­trac­tors, Beck­les said they were al­so deeply con­cerned with the dire ef­fect on the over 10,000 work­ers em­ployed by the con­trac­tors.

“Our po­si­tion is we would do what is nec­es­sary in or­der to pro­tect the in­ter­est of the con­trac­tors as well as the in­ter­ests of the work­ers,” she said.

Beck­les and her col­leagues said the le­gal team would be con­sid­er­ing all le­gal op­tions avail­able to the con­trac­tors and work­ers in­clud­ing in­di­vid­ual and class-ac­tion law­suits and lit­i­ga­tion be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Court.

They said they are in­ter­view­ing in­di­vid­ual con­trac­tors to de­ter­mine what jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, if any, was used by CEPEP’s board and man­age­ment to make the de­ci­sion to ter­mi­nate their con­tracts.

She al­so sug­gest­ed that the gov­ern­ment may next seek to ter­mi­nate the em­ploy­ment of thou­sands of Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) and forestry work­ers.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi al­so ex­pressed trep­i­da­tion over such tout­ed plans.

“Clear­ly they in­tend to sav­age this na­tion. This is a dis­as­ter of epic pro­por­tions and more is yet to come,” he said.

Not­ing that many CEPEP work­ers are sin­gle par­ents, Beck­les and her MPs ques­tioned the tim­ing of the move, which they point­ed out co­in­cid­ed with the end of the school term.

“What would be their re­course when they have to buy school books for their chil­dren?” Gon­za­les asked.

Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land, SC, said: “Noth­ing has been said about con­tin­u­ing em­ploy­ment for them. What hap­pens to that anx­i­ety that has been caused to them and their fam­i­lies? But I won­der who is win­ning now?”

A news team from Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to in­ter­view some of the con­trac­tors but they all re­fused as they said they want­ed to avoid fur­ther pub­lic ridicule while they con­sid­ered their le­gal op­tions.