Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Work­ers af­fect­ed by the ter­mi­na­tion of To­ba­go’s ten-on, ten-off em­ploy­ment pro­gramme are warn­ing that the move could con­tribute to ris­ing crime on the is­land.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine con­firmed the pro­gramme’s can­cel­la­tion on Wednes­day, re­veal­ing that more than 1,000 em­ploy­ees had been re­leased.

Speak­ing at a ple­nary sit­ting in June, Au­gus­tine said the pro­gramme had been ex­tend­ed un­til Au­gust to min­imise dis­rup­tion for fam­i­lies. He said dis­placed work­ers would be able to ap­ply for per­ma­nent po­si­tions with­in the Di­vi­sion of Pub­lic In­fra­struc­ture, where ap­prox­i­mate­ly 700 va­can­cies are ex­pect­ed to be­come avail­able soon.

How­ev­er, one work­er, who had been en­rolled in the pro­gramme for al­most two years, yes­ter­day ques­tioned why the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) did not wait un­til the end of the year be­fore end­ing the ini­tia­tive.

Speak­ing in Scar­bor­ough, the fa­ther of three said many fam­i­lies were still try­ing to meet back-to-school ex­pens­es.

“It have peo­ple still buy­ing books for their chil­dren, and they lock it off al­ready,” he said.

Frus­tra­tion was ev­i­dent in his voice as he warned some young peo­ple could re­sort to crime to sur­vive.

“What they want me do? Climb co­conut and bal­a­ta tree every day of my life? Sit down in front a shop and sell drugs?

“Is more crim­i­nals in To­ba­go now. Oc­to­ber go come and my phone mightn’t ring. Them want peo­ple to go and do s**t.”

Asked about his chances of se­cur­ing a per­ma­nent job, he sug­gest­ed that po­lit­i­cal con­nec­tions could de­ter­mine who gets hired.

“Is who know who, and who will­ing to help you.”

Near­by, Neil Baldeo, orig­i­nal­ly from Pem­broke, said he still has con­fi­dence in Au­gus­tine, but urged him to act quick­ly to en­sure the dis­placed work­ers are not left with­out in­come for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od.

“They can’t let go them peo­ple just so, be­cause it go have chaos and the po­lice go have plen­ty work to do. We don’t want that. We want to train them, give them a skill,” he said.

His friend, Ram­dath Bick­har­ry, of Friends­field, said there were ben­e­fits to end­ing the pro­gramme, pro­vid­ed pro­duc­tive work­ers were re­tained.

“Choose the good work­ing ones and turn them per­ma­nent. The set ah them who work­ing three and four days for the ten days, get rid ah them and hire some fresh batch. It have plen­ty ah them can’t work. They want to work and they can’t work. Some of them can’t even stand up four hours on a work; they ready to go home,” he said.

Mean­while, Ver­non Dun­can, a per­ma­nent em­ploy­ee in the di­vi­sion, said he was an­gered by the de­ci­sion be­cause re­main­ing staff would be forced to shoul­der heav­ier work­loads. He ar­gued that the di­vi­sion was al­ready un­der­staffed and man­age­ment con­tin­ued to ex­pect the same lev­el of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty de­spite hav­ing few­er work­ers.

“We un­der some pres­sure. The 11 men on my gang come down to four. They bring a next gang with two men and they still want the same work what they were get­ting from 11 men.

“Hire work­ers! Peo­ple re­sign­ing and noth­ing ain’t hap­pen­ing,” he said.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) To­ba­go Coun­cil leader Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis con­demned the Au­gus­tine-led ad­min­is­tra­tion, ac­cus­ing it of us­ing the pro­gramme as an elec­tion tool.

“We in the PNM cau­tioned To­bag­o­ni­ans that this is some­thing short-term; it is just to but­ter them up. In the typ­i­cal UNC fash­ion, they tell you what you want to hear, bring you on some sort of short-term arrange­ment, and af­ter they get what they want, which is pow­er and of­fice, they for­get about you,” she said.

Cud­joe-Lewis al­so crit­i­cised Au­gus­tine for as­sur­ing laid-off work­ers that per­ma­nent jobs would soon be­come avail­able.

“The Chief Sec­re­tary had am­ple time to look for an al­ter­na­tive em­ploy­ment arrange­ment. You are promis­ing us food for to­mor­row, and we are hun­gry to­day, so I do not ac­cept the ma­m­aguy.

“It’s the usu­al TPP style; they dan­gle a car­rot in front your eye and then they for­get you.”

She re­called Au­gus­tine’s crit­i­cisms of the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion when he sat in op­po­si­tion.

“I re­mem­ber him say­ing the fish does rot from the head. I am say­ing the same thing ap­plies now. The TPP has run out of ideas. They feel that be­cause they got 15-0, they don’t have to ex­plain any­thing to any­body.”