Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Point Fortin prospec­tive can­di­date Ernesto Ke­sar is promis­ing to cre­ate job op­por­tu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the oil­field sec­tor, un­der a Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led gov­ern­ment.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing the open­ing of the UNC Point Fortin of­fice at School Road on Sun­day, Ke­sar em­pha­sized that em­ploy­ment would be one of his main pri­or­i­ties.

He pledged to im­prove ex­ist­ing work pro­grammes, in­clud­ing Cepep.

"Work­ers must be paid de­cent wages. Work­ers must be re­spect­ed. One of the first things we will do is make these work pro­grammes mean­ing­ful. We will not in­ter­fere with CEPEP work­ers by send­ing them home. That’s what they do to them now. They al­ways lie and say that if the UNC comes in­to pow­er, they will fire al­lyuh. That’s not true. The con­trac­tors may change, but not the work­ers. We in­tend to make CEPEP and sim­i­lar pro­grammes more sta­ble."

Ke­sar al­so said that un­der the UNC, op­por­tu­ni­ties in the oil­field sec­tor—de­clin­ing over the past ten years un­der the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion—would be re­stored.

"In the im­me­di­ate term, we will cre­ate 1,500 to 2,000 jobs in the sec­tor. And with the re­open­ing of the re­fin­ery, even more jobs will be­come avail­able for the peo­ple of the Point Fortin con­stituen­cy."

He added that fund­ing for young en­tre­pre­neurs aged 18 to 35 would be made more ac­ces­si­ble, and men­tor­ship pro­grammes would be in­tro­duced to as­sist those start­ing busi­ness­es.

Promis­ing to en­hance and ex­pand ex­ist­ing ini­tia­tives, Ke­sar al­so called on promi­nent busi­ness­peo­ple from Point Fortin to Ica­cos to par­tic­i­pate in the men­tor­ship pro­gramme.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he urged the gov­ern­ment to clar­i­fy whether the pol­i­cy pro­pos­al to dis­qual­i­fy el­der­ly cit­i­zens with sav­ings over $25,000 from re­ceiv­ing pen­sion as­sis­tance had been of­fi­cial­ly re­moved from the Or­der Pa­per.

For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour had pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed that the pro­pos­al was an er­ror by a pub­lic ser­vant and that the clause would be re­moved.

Ke­sar ques­tioned, "Has that Or­der Pa­per been re­moved from the Par­lia­men­tary Agen­da? That is a ques­tion they need to an­swer. If it has been re­moved, they must state when and on what date be­cause, based on our in­for­ma­tion, it is still on the agen­da."

He re­mind­ed the pub­lic that un­der the Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion, the pen­sion grant was in­creased twice.