Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor- News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

The Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (Cepep) is once again re­ject­ing claims that its work­ers are be­ing pres­sured in­to at­tend­ing po­lit­i­cal events.

The de­nial came af­ter a post by the Face­book page Kick Out the PNM, which al­leged that Cepep em­ploy­ees were “strong­ly ad­vised” to at­tend meet­ings where the Prime Min­is­ter would be present.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, the com­pa­ny said it “has nev­er had meet­ings with con­trac­tors re­lat­ed to at­ten­dance at po­lit­i­cal meet­ings,” and added that “no memo has ever been sent out” on the mat­ter.

“We’re aware of a fake memo be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed on­line claim­ing to be from the Cepep Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed. We want to make it ab­solute­ly clear — this memo is 100% fake and was nev­er is­sued by us.”

Cepep called the post part of “on­go­ing po­lit­i­cal mis­chief de­signed to cre­ate doubt in the minds of vot­ers and de­fame the com­pa­ny.”  It reaf­firmed it is a non-par­ti­san com­pa­ny, say­ing, “The Cepep Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed is not af­fil­i­at­ed with any po­lit­i­cal par­ty. We re­main com­mit­ted to serv­ing the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go with in­tegri­ty, trans­paren­cy, and love for our coun­try.”

The com­pa­ny had ad­dressed a sim­i­lar claim last Fri­day af­ter the Ian Al­leyne Net­work’s Face­book page al­leged that Cepep had called a meet­ing to “threat­en” con­trac­tors and em­ploy­ees in­to at­tend­ing ral­lies.

In that re­lease, the com­pa­ny de­scribed the al­le­ga­tions as “ma­li­cious ru­mours” and “ill-in­tent un­truths,” and urged the pub­lic to be wary of po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed false­hoods dur­ing what it called the “sil­ly sea­son” of pol­i­tics.

Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Faris Al-Rawi al­so re­ject­ed the doc­u­ment as a fake, yes­ter­day.

“I un­equiv­o­cal­ly con­demn the cir­cu­la­tion of a fab­ri­cat­ed doc­u­ment pur­port­ing to be is­sued by Mr Kei­th Ed­dy, Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP).

“I wish to make it abun­dant­ly clear that no such com­mu­ni­ca­tion was ever is­sued by Cepep, its man­age­ment, or any agent act­ing on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment,” Al-Rawi said.

He de­scribed the false memo as an ef­fort to “ex­ploit vul­ner­a­ble mem­bers of the pub­lic by sow­ing seeds of fear, sus­pi­cion, and po­lit­i­cal re­sent­ment,” and called it part of “a dis­turb­ing and de­lib­er­ate strat­e­gy of dis­in­for­ma­tion.”

“This type of con­duct is ir­re­spon­si­ble, rep­re­hen­si­ble and an­ti-de­mo­c­ra­t­ic,” Al-Rawi said. “They are al­so deeply cor­ro­sive to the civic fab­ric of our so­ci­ety and should be re­ject­ed by all de­cent and civic-mind­ed cit­i­zens.”

The min­is­ter urged the pub­lic to re­ject mis­in­for­ma­tion and hold po­lit­i­cal ac­tors ac­count­able. 

The Cepep con­tro­ver­sy came just days af­ter an­oth­er fake doc­u­ment be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing — this time, one bear­ing the let­ter­head of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice (TTFS).

On Sat­ur­day, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress shared what ap­peared to be a re­lease from the TTFS claim­ing that its ral­ly held at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence had ex­ceed­ed the venue’s ca­pac­i­ty and that the Fire Ser­vice ad­vised or­gan­is­ers to stop let­ting pa­trons in. How­ev­er, the doc­u­ment was not au­then­tic.

Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Andy Hutchin­son told Guardian Me­dia: “That is not au­then­tic.”

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Mar­vin Gon­za­les al­so be­gan re­view­ing the re­lease and lat­er con­firmed that he, too, had been as­sured by the Fire Ser­vice that it did not orig­i­nate from with­in the de­part­ment.

Short­ly af­ter, the UNC delet­ed the im­age of the doc­u­ment but kept the cap­tion. The par­ty has not is­sued a pub­lic state­ment on the in­ci­dent.