KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The days are now qui­et at the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) re­gion­al of­fice in Point Fortin, where re­main­ing staff yes­ter­day de­scribed the mood as som­bre, af­ter watch­ing their col­leagues leave with ter­mi­na­tion let­ters on Wednes­day.

Work­ers were re­luc­tant to speak to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, fear­ing more dis­missals.

One em­ploy­ee said on­ly watch­men and a few fort­night­ly paid work­ers re­mained, as most of the month­ly-paid staff were among the es­ti­mat­ed 40 em­ploy­ees from the of­fice who re­ceived ter­mi­na­tion let­ters un­der the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment’s re­struc­tur­ing plan. Some 400 month­ly-paid work­ers across 12 re­gion­al of­fices were dis­missed in the move. URP pro­gramme man­ag­er Feeroz Khan has since said an au­dit of the pro­gramme has found some 8,000 “ghost work­ers” in the sys­tem.

En­gi­neers, su­per­vi­sors, clerks, and ad­min­is­tra­tive staff were ter­mi­nat­ed with­out hear­ings or for­mal charges, prompt­ing sharp con­dem­na­tion from the Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Union (BIG­WU) yes­ter­day. The union brand­ed the move “dra­con­ian” and ar­bi­trary, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of vi­o­lat­ing in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions stan­dards and in­ter­na­tion­al labour con­ven­tions.

For many af­fect­ed em­ploy­ees, the blow was dev­as­tat­ing. Some had served for more than a decade and left with on­ly one month’s salary in lieu of no­tice.

Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen de­fend­ed the de­ci­sion, cit­ing en­trenched cor­rup­tion and the per­sis­tence of “ghost gangs” in the pro­gramme. She ar­gued the Gov­ern­ment had shown le­nien­cy by keep­ing work­ers on for five months af­ter the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

But work­ers re­port­ed er­rors in their dis­missal let­ters and said they were turned away from min­istry of­fices when they sought cor­rec­tions, deep­en­ing their frus­tra­tion and un­cer­tain­ty.

Yes­ter­day, one work­er said, “The mood is som­bre, ob­vi­ous­ly. The change is dif­fi­cult be­cause so many peo­ple went home. Every­one now is wait­ing to see who else will be go­ing home, we do not know.”

An­oth­er ex­plained that the re­gion in­clud­ed sin­gle moth­ers and strug­gling fa­thers from as far as San­ta Flo­ra in the south and Aripero in the north-east. With so many gone, the of­fice has grown anx­ious and still.

“You do not know if they are com­ing to­day to give you a let­ter.”

One work­er ad­mit­ted that she ex­pect­ed changes af­ter the new Gov­ern­ment took of­fice in April, but said los­ing a job re­mained painful.

She added that the dai­ly-paid staff, usu­al­ly re­spon­si­ble for clean­ing streets and schools, had been idle since Ju­ly. They now wait in hope for even a ten-day stint to earn some mon­ey.

Pro­gramme man­ag­er elu­sive

Sev­er­al ques­tions sent by Guardian Me­dia to URP pro­gramme man­ag­er Feeroze Khan on the “re­struc­tur­ing” of the state com­pa­ny are yet to be an­swered.

While speak­ing briefly with Guardian Me­dia on Wednes­day, he con­firmed that 400 ter­mi­na­tion let­ters were sent out, leav­ing 700 month­ly paid work­ers still on the URP pay­roll. Fol­low-up ques­tions have gone unan­swered.

Guardian Me­dia has since sought to as­cer­tain if fur­ther ter­mi­na­tions will im­pact the 700 staff mem­bers still at the com­pa­ny. How­ev­er, Khan is yet to re­spond.

URP line min­is­ter, Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen, and Khan him­self, have claimed that the ter­mi­na­tions were nec­es­sary to root out cor­rup­tion with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Both al­leged that an au­dit of the com­pa­ny un­earthed a pro­lif­er­a­tion of cor­rupt prac­tices, such as em­ploy­ees who on­ly ex­ist on on­ly pa­per, who they have dubbed “ghost gangs.”

Guardian Me­dia asked Khan if he could pro­vide ev­i­dence to sup­port their claims but that ques­tion has not been an­swered. Min­is­ter Ameen yes­ter­day de­nied there was any in­struc­tion to ig­nore Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions.