Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Al­le­ga­tions of deep-root­ed cor­rup­tion with­in the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) have sparked po­lit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sy. This, af­ter Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen ac­cused the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion of turn­ing the ini­tia­tive in­to a “feed­ing fren­zy” for friends, fam­i­ly mem­bers, and fi­nanciers.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions on the sta­tus of an au­dit in­to the pro­gramme from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter Ameen claimed the URP, in­tend­ed to pro­vide tem­po­rary em­ploy­ment for the na­tion’s most vul­ner­a­ble, had been ex­ploit­ed for par­ti­san ben­e­fit.

“It is one of the ar­eas that the PNM used to siphon state funds to the pock­ets of their friends and fam­i­lies and ac­tivists, and it was a to­tal abuse of the pub­lic purse,” Ameen said in a tele­phone in­ter­view.

“Of the 300 mil­lion al­lo­cat­ed to URP in the cur­rent fis­cal (year), 231 mil­lion has been drawn down so far and we on­ly have about 2 mil­lion of that that was spent on goods and ser­vices, and a lot of it re­al­ly went to the pay­roll but what we have found is that there are a num­ber of em­ploy­ees who are named on reg­is­ters to work but have not gone to work.”

She claimed the URP was sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly hi­jacked by the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion to fun­nel mil­lions of pub­lic funds to their ben­e­fit.

The min­is­ter al­so said in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the pro­gramme by Gov­ern­ment had so far re­vealed in­stances of ab­sent and “ghost” em­ploy­ees.

“There are sev­er­al oth­er in­stances of per­sons who are on a month­ly paid ros­ter and many of them do not turn up for ac­tu­al work. You have, of course, sev­er­al ghost gangs op­er­at­ing where you can­not find them, but the ghost al­so comes in­to the of­fice, and the for­mer gov­ern­ment has a lot of ques­tions to an­swer.”

She flagged one case in­volv­ing the daugh­ter of a PNM of­fi­cial, who, de­spite be­ing en­rolled in a uni­ver­si­ty abroad, was al­leged­ly re­ceiv­ing a week­ly salary from the pro­gramme.

Ameen not­ed that since the change in gov­ern­ment and the start of in­ter­nal au­dits, many of the al­leged cul­pa­ble in­di­vid­u­als had since re­signed from the URP pro­gramme.

“So, there is no mass fir­ing at URP. There are a lot of ‘ghosts’ who are now do­ing the right thing and re­sign­ing their po­si­tions,” Ameen claimed.

Ameen al­so al­leged that in the lead-up to the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, hun­dreds of URP hires were con­cen­trat­ed in mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies along the East-West Cor­ri­dor, with over 500 work­groups al­leged­ly re­as­signed from To­ba­go to Trinidad, a move she de­scribed as “po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed.”

She vowed that the new ad­min­is­tra­tion is com­mit­ted to root­ing out cor­rup­tion with­in the pro­gramme.

“We are com­mit­ted to ex­or­cis­ing the ghosts that are in the pro­gramme and to com­mit­ting our­selves to cre­at­ing jobs for the gen­uine­ly un­em­ployed. This is the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme. This is not a feed your friend and fam­i­ly pro­gramme.”

Ameen in­sist­ed the Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue root­ing out cor­rup­tion in the URP and redi­rect­ing funds to­ward gen­uine em­ploy­ment sup­port.

“We will en­sure every dol­lar reach­es those tru­ly in need,” she said.

De No­bri­ga: This is a po­lit­i­cal purge

How­ev­er, PNM Shad­ow Min­is­ter for Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Symon de No­bri­ga, yes­ter­day re­ject­ed Ameen’s claims, ac­cus­ing the new ad­min­is­tra­tion of us­ing un­ver­i­fied al­le­ga­tions as cov­er for po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed ter­mi­na­tions.

“There seems to be a clear play­book be­ing im­ple­ment­ed by the UNC in the first three months of their tenure,” de No­bri­ga said.

“Make loud, un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion in a par­tic­u­lar pro­gramme and use that as the ba­sis for mass fir­ings that are noth­ing but po­lit­i­cal vic­tim­i­sa­tion.”

He said the UNC gov­ern­ment is at­tempt­ing to dis­tract from its fail­ure to fund its own cam­paign promis­es.

“This is an­oth­er at­tempt to dis­tract the wider pop­u­la­tion and their im­me­di­ate base sup­port­ers from a sim­ple fact: the UNC had ab­solute­ly no idea how they were go­ing to fi­nance their promis­es, and they still have no idea.”

De No­bri­ga chal­lenged Ameen to take her claims to law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties.

“If the min­is­ter has proof, I en­cour­age her to car­ry it to the prop­er au­thor­i­ties. I sus­pect, how­ev­er, that this will not hap­pen — just as it hasn’t in the oth­er cas­es where al­leged cor­rup­tion was used to jus­ti­fy thou­sands of job loss­es.”

He al­so re­ject­ed the nar­ra­tive that re­cent res­ig­na­tions were tied to wrong­do­ing, sug­gest­ing in­stead that work­ers were leav­ing due to fear of vic­tim­i­sa­tion.

“Those in URP read the writ­ing on the wall and went in search of oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties that wouldn’t ex­pose them to this kind of at­tack and per­se­cu­tion.”

De No­bri­ga al­so ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of en­gag­ing in sys­tem­at­ic purg­ing across state pro­grammes.

“They have cre­at­ed a hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis in the same way they cre­at­ed an eco­nom­ic one by adding $9 bil­lion to our pub­lic debt at mid-year, with no clear plan to fund it,” he said.

He re­mind­ed the pub­lic of the UNC’s cam­paign promise to cre­ate 50,000 jobs.

“As of to­day, we have seen 20,000 jobs pur­pose­ful­ly erad­i­cat­ed. The UNC is now 70,000 jobs away from their promise.”

The PNM main­tained the Gov­ern­ment is en­gag­ing in po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed purges to con­sol­i­date pow­er and shift at­ten­tion from eco­nom­ic pres­sures.