SASCHA WILSON
While a pay increase may not be on the table for Cepep workers, Rural Development and Local Government Minister Faris Al-Rawi says the company will become diversified to include hydroponics and mulching.
While speaking at a health, safety, security and environment exhibition at Cepep’s head office in Ste Madeleine, the minister acknowledged several workers in the crowd who were vociferously calling for a pay increase.
He said, “Recently we had certain increases in the minimum wage and the Government also has to look at its overall balance sheet, but I can tell you Cepep’s future involves diversifying the company, moving into something that makes sense—hydroponics, agriculture, mulching.”
He said two of these project models would allow contractors to grow their business.
He explained that in the vertical hydroponics programme, an investment of $22,500 with six hydroponics units would yield $6,500 profit per month while an investment of $150,000 would earn $30,000 per month.
Speaking to reporters afterwards, Al-Rawi said everyone wanted more money, but what was being offered was a degree of entrepreneurship.
“If you have a food bill of $3 billion, anything you produce and grow here can sell so you have got to put common sense into the equation with entrepreneurship and structure,” he said.
Pressed further about a possible wage hike, he said the impact on taxpayer dollars was important because anything Government was asked to pay for had to be funded.
“And nobody wants to pay more money by tax. You want to have value for money. Value for money in Cepep means making an enterprise like this work better and work in alignment with other objectives and the Vision 2030 plan,” he said.
Noting that Cepep employed 10,200 workers and had hundreds of contractors, he explained, “So what we are looking for is to bring about the local government reform through innovation that allows supplementation of income, because we do need to ensure people’s quality of life is better and part of it involves entrepreneurship and therefore we have tested models that make great business sense.
“We have to approach the Cabinet now. We have done a one-year trial period for some of these models, so we have proof of concept and we know how much money we could make off how many units and what investment,” the minister added.
There were 29 booths on display at the event.