Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Edi­tior - News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi has con­demned the ter­mi­na­tion of over 300 Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) con­trac­tors as the start of what he de­scribed as a “reign of tyran­ny” un­der the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led Gov­ern­ment.

Al-Rawi made the com­ment dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Par­lia­ment tea break, as he and sev­er­al Op­po­si­tion MPs re­spond­ed to grow­ing re­ports of wide­spread CEPEP con­trac­tor dis­missals yes­ter­day.

“That’s quite un­usu­al,” Al-Rawi said, point­ing out that Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath had re­quest­ed $60.5 mil­lion in the Mid-year Bud­get Re­view to fund ex­ist­ing con­trac­tors and 12 ad­di­tion­al ones through year-end.

“To­day, 10,752 CEPEP peo­ple, the vast ma­jor­i­ty earn­ing $1,400 a fort­night, are af­fect­ed,” he said.

His es­ti­mate was based on the dis­missal of 336 con­trac­tors, each em­ploy­ing around 30 work­ers, he said.

In the 2024/2025 Bud­get, then-Fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert had an­nounced a wage in­crease aimed at ben­e­fit­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 6,900 CEPEP work­ers.

Con­fir­ma­tion of the ter­mi­na­tions of con­trac­tors came via a let­ter cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day, in which CEPEP CEO Kei­th Ed­dy in­formed con­trac­tors that their agree­ments had been ter­mi­nat­ed with im­me­di­ate ef­fect. The let­ter, ref­er­enc­ing an Au­gust 24, 2022 agree­ment, stat­ed that pay­ment in lieu of one month’s no­tice would be processed, and re­quest­ed the re­turn of all CEPEP prop­er­ty with­in sev­en days.

Some con­trac­tors, who jour­neyed to the com­pa­ny’s St Madeleine head­quar­ters af­ter re­ceiv­ing the let­ters yes­ter­day, claimed they had up to 11 months left on their con­tracts.

Al-Rawi sig­nalled that le­gal chal­lenges on this were ahead.

“There’s a core group of at­tor­neys or­gan­is­ing in de­fence,” he said.

“We made a com­mit­ment to pro­tect those who are vul­ner­a­ble. How does a sin­gle moth­er with sev­en chil­dren earn­ing $700 a week af­ford le­gal fees?”

He warned the Gov­ern­ment to com­ply with pub­lic pro­cure­ment law in any fu­ture re­hir­ing.

“Chal­lenge pro­ceed­ings will be brought,” he said.

“I’m con­fi­dent the UNC will move to amend or re­peal the law be­cause they don’t un­der­stand its com­plex­i­ty — but we do.”

He said ad­di­tion­al ac­tion could fol­low through the In­dus­tri­al Court and oth­er le­gal chan­nels.

Re­spond­ing to the ter­mi­na­tions yes­ter­day, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath said the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion had re­newed more than 300 CEPEP con­tracts for three years with­out Cab­i­net ap­proval.

He con­firmed that the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al guid­ed the process, which re­sult­ed in the ter­mi­na­tion of all con­trac­tors af­ter a full re­view.

12,000 jobs al­ready lost un­der UNC, says PNM

The Op­po­si­tion PNM claims over 12,000 jobs have been lost since the UNC took of­fice in April. Ac­cord­ing to Al-Rawi, af­fect­ed groups in­clude:

• ↓10,752 CEPEP work­ers

• ↓10 WASA ex­ec­u­tives

• ↓500 WASA change man­age­ment staff

• ↓140 staff from the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment

• ↓700 COVID con­tract work­ers at RHAs

• ↓900 from an un­named agency

• ↓A po­ten­tial 700 more at an­oth­er

He al­so claimed that con­tracts were bought out at the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

For­mer For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne said the CEPEP ter­mi­na­tions would push fam­i­lies deep­er in­to hard­ship.

“This is not a win for Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Symon de No­bri­ga called the dis­missals “reck­less and heart­less,” say­ing the Gov­ern­ment was tar­get­ing CEPEP work­ers for po­lit­i­cal rea­sons.

“This is po­lit­i­cal ret­ri­bu­tion,” he claimed, adding that a Gov­ern­ment MP had told Op­po­si­tion mem­bers, “This is not PNM coun­try.”

He said promis­es to cre­ate 50,000 jobs had in­stead re­sult­ed in thou­sands of peo­ple los­ing work.

“This Gov­ern­ment must be held to ac­count for the de­struc­tion they are in­flict­ing on peo­ple’s lives and liveli­hoods,” de No­bri­ga said.