Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has told fired CEPEP work­ers that the gov­ern­ment will put poli­cies in place to em­pow­er them be­yond cut­ting grass for the rest of their lives.

He said more “sus­tain­able” jobs are com­ing and told the PNM to re­frain from us­ing the for­mer CEPEP work­ers for po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­di­en­cy.

On June 27, the gov­ern­ment ter­mi­nat­ed the con­tracts of hun­dreds of CEPEP con­trac­tors which the Op­po­si­tion claimed re­sult­ed in more than 10,000 work­ers los­ing their jobs.

Speak­ing more on the mat­ter yes­ter­day at the par­ty’s head­quar­ters in Ch­agua­nas, Padarath said the gov­ern­ment plans to re­turn the com­pa­ny to its “orig­i­nal moor­ings” and get peo­ple in more sus­tain­able jobs.

“So, when I hear about the moth­ers who need to put food on their ta­bles, buy school­books, that is why the gov­ern­ment’s thrust, this gov­ern­ment’s thrust is to en­sure that we have the lap­top pro­gramme, that we can have af­ford­able food prices.

“So, it is not about keep­ing peo­ple in the mind­set of cut­ting grass for the rest of their lives. It is about em­pow­er­ing them and em­pow­er­ing their chil­dren to have a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life,” he said.

Padarath claimed CEPEP was used as a po­lit­i­cal pawn to have peo­ple go to po­lit­i­cal meet­ings, wear a red jer­sey, wave a bal­isi­er for a mea­gre fee at the end of the month.

“Se­nior par­ty of­fi­cials of the PNM con­tin­ue to walk away with large hefty salaries and con­tracts on the backs of the poor peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he added.

Padarath al­so claimed that the PNM used CEPEP for “po­lit­i­cal pros­ti­tu­tion”.

“The re­search on the com­pa­ny’s reg­istry is be­ing done and it’s al­ready show­ing that there are sev­er­al close­ly aligned per­sons, whether they were min­is­ters, they were MPs, they were may­ors, they were coun­cil­lors to per­sons with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and that is why I can say with con­vic­tion that CEPEP was used as a pawn.”

Padarath had pre­vi­ous­ly an­nounced that pri­or to the April 28 gen­er­al elec­tion, more then 300 CEPEP con­tracts were re­newed with­out Cab­i­net ap­proval.

“They are not in­ter­est­ed in serv­ing the in­ter­ests of work­ers but we have said that we will con­tin­ue to stand by the side of work­ers it must not mean that it will be al­lowed to con­tin­ue in the most ob­scene il­le­gal and dare I say non-trans­par­ent way,” he said

Padarath de­clared that un­der his watch CEPEP will not be a PNM par­ty group.

Ref­er­enc­ing the le­gal clin­ic held by the Op­po­si­tion Leader yes­ter­day in Cou­va for the fired con­trac­tors, Padarath asked where this en­er­gy was when the gov­ern­ment was in pow­er and oth­er work­ers lost their jobs.

“I want to call on the PNM who is en­gaged in their own sub­terfuge that while you re­main silent when WASA work­ers went home, when TSTT work­ers went home, when Petrotrin work­ers went home, where was the out­cry then?

“To­day, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress gov­ern­ment is en­sur­ing that we seek the in­ter­ests of work­ers and the pub­lic’s purse through the tax­pay­er and there­fore, I call on all mem­bers of the PNM to de­clare your in­ter­est.”

Asked about Moru­ga/ Table­land MP Michelle Ben­jamin’s state­ment on Sat­ur­day in which she said fired CEPEP work­ers would be re­hired, Padarath said that should be done af­ter new con­trac­tors are hired to work in com­mu­ni­ties where they re­side.

He sought to un­der­score that the gov­ern­ment did not ter­mi­nate the em­ploy­ees, but rather the con­trac­tors.

Asked if he be­lieves this uptick in un­em­ploy­ment will lead to more crime in the coun­try, Padarath said that ques­tion would be bet­ter aimed at the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty.