Yvonne?Ba­boolal

Even though a pre­vi­ous Peo­ple's Na­tion­al M ad­min­is­tra­tion failed to ful­fill Vol­un­tary Sep­a­ra­tion of Em­ploy­ment Pack­age (VSEP) oblig­a­tions to for­mer Ca­roni Ltd work­ers, Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat is com­mit­ting him­self to en­sur­ing they are rapid­ly achieved.

The an­nounce­ment was made by Ca­roni Ltd chair­man, Jer­ry Hospedales, in his ad­dress at a cer­e­mo­ny at the Cou­va/Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce yes­ter­day in which 452 leas­es were dis­trib­uted to for­mer sug­ar work­ers for agri­cul­tur­al and res­i­den­tial lots promised them in their VSEP.

Ramb­harat, de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress to the group in the cham­ber's hall, said he made his­to­ry when he be­came the first for­mer Ca­roni work­er to be ap­point­ed a Gov­ern­ment min­is­ter af­ter the Sep­tem­ber 7 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Ramb­harat held the posts of cor­po­rate sec­re­tary and CEO of Ca­roni Ltd dur­ing the VSEP years and was in­stru­men­tal in draft­ing the pack­age.He said he al­so was giv­en agri­cul­tur­al and res­i­den­tial lots af­ter the clo­sure of Ca­roni Ltd but has been wait­ing since 2005 "for it to hap­pen."

He said there were many dif­fi­cul­ties in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of leas­es, the last of the VSEP com­mit­ments not yet ho­n­oured, which start­ed with the PNM and con­tin­ued with the for­mer Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion.

For­mer Land and Ma­rine Af­fairs min­is­ter, Jairum Seemu­n­gal, who gave out thou­sands of leas­es to for­mer Ca­roni Ltd work­ers dur­ing the last ad­min­is­tra­tion's term in of­fice was se­vere­ly crit­i­cised by the PNM op­po­si­tion at the time for "giv­ing away all the State's land".

Ramb­harat said he had no in­ten­tion of deny­ing for­mer Ca­roni Ltd work­ers what they were en­ti­tled to.He said his Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing it de­liv­ered to the for­mer sug­ar work­ers what was re­quired un­der their VSEP and by the court's or­der.

The for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion was tak­en to court by the work­ers for re­fus­ing to ful­fil the VSEP oblig­a­tions and lost the case. Jus­tice Deyals­ingh or­dered they be giv­en what was due to them.The PNM ap­pealed the rul­ing but it was with­drawn by the PP when it came in­to pow­er. The PP be­gan the lease dis­tri­b­u­tion ex­er­cise af­ter this.

Ramb­harat said the ex­er­cise was shift­ed to the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands un­der the PP, whose of­fice is in El So­cor­ro.

How­ev­er, one of the first pol­i­cy de­ci­sions he made when he be­came Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter was to shift the process back to Cou­va, he said. The Cou­va of­fice will be ful­ly func­tion­al by next month.Fur­ther, his min­istry is work­ing on cre­at­ing a spe­cial unit to en­cour­age all the re­cip­i­ents of agri­cul­tur­al plots to get in­to farm­ing.

Ramb­harat said many who got leas­es al­ready sold their land and oth­ers were wait­ing to sell.He said when the VSEP was con­ceived, the idea was to give the for­mer work­ers land to keep as a fam­i­ly lega­cy and to cul­ti­vate as a form of in­come.He ap­pealed to the re­cip­i­ents at the func­tion to hold on to their leas­es. He told them he was ac­ces­si­ble to them, friend­ly and there to help.

PNM min­is­ters have been crit­i­cised for be­ing in­ac­ces­si­ble. Yes­ter­day, for­mer PP min­is­ter, Vas­ant Bharath, said a gag or­der had been placed on them. He was re­fer­ring to their si­lence on many per­ti­nent is­sues af­fect­ing the na­tion.