SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Al­though sev­er­al sec­tors of the econ­o­my are be­ing slow­ly re­opened, there is no word yet on when the Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal, Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (CEPEP) pro­gramme will re­sume work.

CEPEP, which em­ploys rough­ly 10,000 work­ers and con­trac­tors, was shut down sev­er­al months ago along with most oth­er sec­tors when COV­UD-19 cas­es were spi­ralling out of con­trol.

How­ev­er, over the past month, some sec­tors, in­clud­ing food ser­vice have been re­opened with re­stric­tions.

On Mon­day, the re­tail sec­tor is ex­pect­ed to be re­opened as well.

In a brief in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed yes­ter­day, CEPEP chair­man Mar­i­lyn Michael said the com­pa­ny awaits word from the Min­istry of Health to re­sume op­er­a­tions.

Michael could not say whether any rec­om­men­da­tions have been sent to the min­istry for the re­sump­tion of work at CEPEP.

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to line Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein who echoed Michael’s state­ments, say­ing CEPEP em­ploy­ees will have to wait and see what the Health Min­istry de­cides.

On May 26, the com­pa­ny took a de­ci­sion to pay the 10,000 em­ploy­ees two-thirds of their salaries while they were at home. The em­ploy­ees were pre­vi­ous­ly paid their en­tire salary while at home.

At a press con­fer­ence a week lat­er, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said this de­ci­sion was tak­en to pre­vent the so­cial ser­vices from be­ing over­whelmed by 10,000 more re­quests for fi­nan­cial sup­port.