The non-payment of gratuities to over 100 former Children’s Authority workers is disgraceful.
This was flagged by Independent Senator Hazel Thompson-Ahye in yesterday’s Senate debate on the Cannabis Control Bill. It is geared towards regulating and providing licences for the cannabis business in T&T.
Noting clauses in the bill for payment of remuneration and gratuities for the CEO and employees of the planned T&T Cannabis Licensing Authority, Thompson-Ahye said she was glad to see this, as she had always complained to Parliament about the hardships suffered by contract workers.
“Including those formerly employed by the Children’s Authority to get their gratuities,” Thompson-Ahye added.
“Over 100 of them waiting, some for over a year, for their money. It’s disgraceful and smacks of a lack of empathy for our fellow citizens!”
Thompson-Ahye, weighing the pros and cons of the bill’s clauses, said, “Will this be a success story or a dream deferred—I hope the former.”
She said the situation holds tremendous opportunities for a new thrust of entrepreneurship.
“But the question is, ‘Where is the capital to come from and who will provide the much-required training opportunities and who will be the beneficiaries? Those greedy vultures who already have too much? Or the disadvantaged who have only - poop,” she added.
“It is a challenge for the Government to put their money where their mouth is, to have courage in the face of campaign financing obligations—which sometimes get in the way.”
Thompson-Ahye called for attention to ensure that T&T’s regulation of the industry wouldn’t result in those with “more corn feeding more fowls” and to ensure those who have suffered from being used by drug lords—take all the risks and very little of the profit—finally get their just share.
Noting international studies—particularly concerning ill effects on youths—calls for careful use of it as a medicine and the need to understand all of its effects, she said there was a view the bill wasn’t in the interest of right-thinking members of society. She said research should be funded to understand how it affects T&T’s youths.
On the flip side and why some countries were regulating it, Thompson-Ahye listed touted benefits cited in a magazine, better sleep though it wasn’t certain effects wouldn’t wear off with regular use, improved gastrointestinal/irritable bowel syndrome and managing anxiety.
Thompson-Ahye, also noting Canadian cannabis industry workers were being laid off, urged that T&T probe why such occurrences were happening.
She recalled UWI Student Guild days with the late Lutalo “Brother Resistance” Masimba and others, when she detected a strange odour and would glare at Resistance saying, “What I smelling there? I hope is not weed you know!”
Thompson-Ahye, who said Resistance would grin, said her colleagues might have died of shock—after knowing her abhorrence of weed smoking—to hear her now say anything remotely in favour of a cannabis bill. She felt Resistance might have put it into song, including chorusing “Is whaat...Ring the Bell!”
Thompson-Ahye added, “Rest in peace Brother, it’s almost a year since we lost you.”