Re­cent­ly dis­missed month­ly-paid work­ers with the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) say the re­cent batch of ter­mi­na­tions has cast un­cer­tain­ty over their fu­tures.

Sev­er­al work­ers have al­so raised con­cerns over er­rors in the date of ter­mi­na­tion and oth­er in­ac­cu­ra­cies in the dis­missal let­ters giv­en to them and have claimed that ef­forts to rec­ti­fy it on­ly lead to fur­ther bu­reau­cra­cy.

On Wednes­day Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen con­firmed that 400 URP work­ers would be ter­mi­nat­ed as let­ters were dis­trib­uted to 12 re­gion­al of­fices.

Ameen de­fend­ed the move, as she said such changes was part of a "make work" pro­gramme aimed at tack­ling years of en­trenched cor­rup­tion.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that 700 month­ly-paid work­ers re­mained on the job as of Thurs­day af­ter­noon.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed one of the URP's head of­fices in El So­cor­ro, sev­er­al peo­pler were seen leav­ing the build­ing with en­velopes.

Some de­clined to speak, how­ev­er one re­cent­ly dis­missed work­er, Joan An­toine said she was giv­en her dis­missal let­ter on Wednes­day af­ter be­ing called to of­fice.

She said that due to an er­ror in the date, she was told to vis­it the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment in Kent House, Mar­aval, to have the sit­u­a­tion rec­ti­fied.

How­ev­er a voice note cir­cu­lat­ed on What­sApp by one dis­grun­tled em­ploy­ee urged the for­mer em­ploy­ees to stand their ground and in­sist it be rec­ti­fied at their re­spec­tive re­gion­al head of­fices.

"Please note that oth­er col­leagues went to head of­fice this morn­ing to get it rec­ti­fied and the se­cu­ri­ty did not al­low them to come on the com­pound, how­ev­er they were told to go to Kent House where the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary is to fix it.

"When you all are giv­en your let­ter and it is wrong, please let them know that they have to fix it be­cause of what has tran­spired."

How­ev­er An­toine said she was still dis­heart­ened by the sud­den no­tice of dis­missal, not­ing that she has worked for the URP for ten years.

"It's ten years' of your life that just gone down the drain just so and they ain't give you noth­ing more than a month's pay.

"It come like you have to start over again. You ain't get­ting noth­ing from URP, they sup­posed to give us a pack­age, they nev­er give us any pack­age... they keep bawl­ing that they don't have any mon­ey.

"They could have just wait for the bud­get, do what they had to do and send we home if you so want to send us home, or they could have just de­mote us and bring in who alyuh want to bring in.

"Be­cause it have plen­ty peo­ple out there who have noth­ing else to go to and they have chil­dren, so it's very sad."

An­toine said the mood in the El So­cor­ro URP of­fice on Thurs­day was "busi­ness as usu­al" as many have al­ready been served their dis­missal let­ters, not­ing that there were on­ly a few em­ploy­ees in­side.

How­ev­er one vis­i­tor at the of­fice, who asked not to be named, said she no­ticed a somber tone among some staff mem­bers, as the em­ploy­ees were par­tic­u­lar­ly mo­rose.

"They didn't seem too up­beat and it's not the usu­al of­fice at­mos­phere, there was some un­easi­ness and heav­i­ness in their move­ments... I could tell.

"I just came to col­lect some­thing for an er­rand but in the short time in there it was no­tice­able."

Guardian Me­dia tried to con­tact URP pro­gramme man­ag­er Feeroze Khan twice for com­ment on Thurs­day, but was told on both oc­ca­sions that he was in a meet­ing and would speak at a lat­er time.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands ad­di­tion­al let­ters of ter­mi­na­tion were sent to work­ers of the Port-of-Spain and Diego Mar­tin of­fices.