Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Just over 1,800 work­ers have been em­ployed by the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture fol­low­ing the na­tion­al re­cruit­ment dri­ve launched in Oc­to­ber, as the Gov­ern­ment moves to strength­en field op­er­a­tions and ac­cel­er­ate main­te­nance work across the coun­try.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John said the new­ly re­cruit­ed work­ers have been strate­gi­cal­ly de­ployed to ar­eas re­quir­ing im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly high­way main­te­nance, veg­e­ta­tion con­trol and drainage prepa­ra­tion ahead of the up­com­ing rainy sea­son.

“At this stage, I am sat­is­fied with the ini­tial out­comes of the pro­gramme,” John said. “This first phase has fo­cused on en­sur­ing work­ers are ori­ent­ed, trained and mo­bilised quick­ly, al­low­ing the on­board­ing process to trans­late in­to vis­i­ble ac­tion on the ground, which is the in­tend­ed out­come.”

Ac­cord­ing to John, works are cur­rent­ly un­der­way across all dis­tricts na­tion­wide, with crews op­er­at­ing dur­ing day­time and night-time hours in an ef­fort to max­imise pro­duc­tiv­i­ty while min­imis­ing dis­rup­tion to mo­torists. She said the ex­pand­ed work­force has al­lowed the min­istry to in­ten­si­fy its main­te­nance sched­ule along ma­jor trans­port cor­ri­dors and flood-prone ar­eas.

Ac­tive op­er­a­tions are tak­ing place at sev­er­al key lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing the Grand Bazaar In­ter­change, Pi­ar­co In­ter­sec­tion, the Uri­ah But­ler High­way and the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way and sur­round­ing ar­eas. Min­is­ter John said these sites were pri­ori­tised due to traf­fic vol­umes and their im­por­tance to na­tion­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty.

The dri­ve, which drew thou­sands of ap­pli­cants, of­fered over 20,000 po­si­tions across the coun­try, rang­ing from skilled trades to ad­min­is­tra­tive roles.

The ini­tia­tive was in­tro­duced as part of broad­er ef­forts to ad­dress un­em­ploy­ment while ac­cel­er­at­ing long-stand­ing main­te­nance back­logs across key sec­tors, par­tic­u­lar­ly in­fra­struc­ture and lo­cal gov­ern­ment ser­vices.

She added that sim­i­lar main­te­nance ac­tiv­i­ties are be­ing con­duct­ed in oth­er ar­eas across the length and breadth of the coun­try, with dis­trict-based teams ad­dress­ing lo­cal pri­or­i­ties iden­ti­fied through as­sess­ments by tech­ni­cal staff.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen re­it­er­at­ed that the Up­keep of Pub­lic Spaces Pro­gramme was a Cab­i­net-ap­proved, 13-week pi­lot project de­signed to en­hance the main­te­nance of pub­lic spaces while pro­vid­ing short-term em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Un­der the pro­gramme, 220 work­ers have been hired by her min­istry and as­signed to var­i­ous re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions.

Both min­is­ters said the per­for­mance and im­pact of these pro­grammes will be as­sessed at the end of their ini­tial phas­es, with a view to in­form­ing fu­ture em­ploy­ment and in­fra­struc­ture ini­tia­tives.