CEPEP pay row

Gonzales calls out Padarath as fired workers yet to receive promised July salaries

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath and for­mer min­is­ter un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion, Mar­vin Gon­za­les, are now en­gag­ing in a heat­ed war of words over the on­go­ing de­lays in promised pay­ments to Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) con­trac­tors and work­ers, amid wider ten­sions sur­round­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s re­struc­tur­ing of the pro­gramme.

Af­ter over 300 con­trac­tors CEPEP were ter­mi­nat­ed on June 27, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led Gov­ern­ment had promised that the 10,500 work­ers af­fect­ed by the move would re­ceive their salaries for Ju­ly. Those salaries were ini­tial­ly sup­posed to be paid out last week.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Padarath con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that Gov­ern­ment had not been able to ful­fil the promise be­cause CEPEP re­quired sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing. As such, he said ef­forts were now be­ing made to­wards pro­cess­ing the out­stand­ing pay­ments to the con­trac­tors by next week.

“As you are aware, CEPEP re­quired sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing dur­ing the mid-year (bud­get) re­view. I am ad­vised by the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary that min­istries are work­ing to­wards hav­ing the pay­ments done next week.”

How­ev­er, Gon­za­les yes­ter­day dis­missed Padarath’s as­sur­ances, ac­cus­ing the min­is­ter of spread­ing mis­in­for­ma­tion and pre­sid­ing over what he de­scribed as a “reign of ter­ror” against the coun­try’s most vul­ner­a­ble.

“The same min­is­ter who said that the work­ers will be paid ear­li­er this week (last week)? The same min­is­ter who in­flict­ed and un­leashed his reign of ter­ror on the lives of the most vul­ner­a­ble in this coun­try? Noth­ing he says should be be­lieved. With just three months in of­fice, he al­ready has a se­ri­ous trust deficit.”

Padarath, how­ev­er, pushed back and ac­cused Gon­za­les and mem­bers of the pre­vi­ous PNM gov­ern­ment of caus­ing the de­lay in fund­ing.

“MP Gon­za­les should be the last per­son to use trust and deficit in the same sen­tence. Had MP Gon­za­les and his co­horts sought the in­ter­est of work­ers in­stead of con­trac­tors, friends, fam­i­ly and fi­nanciers of the PNM, the new ad­min­is­tra­tion would not have to wait for sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing through the mid-year re­view to ad­dress the sit­u­a­tion. If shame­less had a face, it would be Mar­vin Gon­za­les.”

On June 27, CEPEP CEO Kei­th Ed­dy is­sued ter­mi­na­tion let­ters to hun­dreds of its con­trac­tors. The ac­tion by the new­ly formed UNC Gov­ern­ment ef­fec­tive­ly placed over 10,000 work­ers on the bread­line.

The ter­mi­na­tion came days af­ter the Gov­ern­ment an­nounced its plans to con­duct a full au­dit of the pro­gramme’s as­sets, con­tracts, and op­er­a­tions, cit­ing con­cerns over al­leged cor­rup­tion and mis­man­age­ment.

Con­trac­tors and work­ers em­ployed un­der CEPEP have al­so not yet been paid for ser­vices ren­dered in June.

The de­lay has caused wide­spread con­cern among work­ers, es­pe­cial­ly fol­low­ing the abrupt ter­mi­na­tion of nu­mer­ous CEPEP con­trac­tors as part of what the Gov­ern­ment de­scribed as a re­struc­tur­ing ini­tia­tive.

The CEPEP pro­gramme has long been a vi­tal source of em­ploy­ment for thou­sands of low-in­come in­di­vid­u­als, pro­vid­ing com­mu­ni­ty clean-up and beau­ti­fi­ca­tion ser­vices. How­ev­er, the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion has cit­ed in­ef­fi­cien­cies and al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion un­der the pre­vi­ous man­age­ment as the rea­son­ing for its shake-up of the pro­gramme.

Padarath has, on nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions, de­fend­ed the re­struc­tur­ing, stat­ing it is aimed at im­prov­ing trans­paren­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness.

At a me­dia con­fer­ence ear­li­er this month, Padarath said the Gov­ern­ment plans to re­turn the com­pa­ny to its “orig­i­nal moor­ings” and get peo­ple in more sus­tain­able jobs.

“So, when I hear about the moth­ers who need to put food on their ta­bles, buy school­books, that is why the Gov­ern­ment’s thrust, this Gov­ern­ment’s thrust, is to en­sure that we have the lap­top pro­gramme, that we can have af­ford­able food prices.

“So, it is not about keep­ing peo­ple in the mind­set of cut­ting grass for the rest of their lives. It is about em­pow­er­ing them and em­pow­er­ing their chil­dren to have a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life,” he said.

Dur­ing a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Beetham Gar­dens on Thurs­day, the Op­po­si­tion de­clared war on the rul­ing UNC over what they said was the fir­ing of thou­sands of work­ers, which had left par­ents un­der se­vere fi­nan­cial stress.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, not­ing hun­dreds of Re­for­esta­tion, re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ty and oth­er work­ers at gov­ern­ment and state agen­cies had al­so been sent home in the months since the UNC won the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, con­demned Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her Gov­ern­ment, call­ing them cru­el for can­celling con­tracts at a time when par­ents will be most af­fect­ed.

“What moth­er, what leader will sit down with­in a month or so of get­ting in­to of­fice and agree to a pol­i­cy that will send thou­sands of peo­ple home? But more im­por­tant­ly, know­ing that Ju­ly and Au­gust, that is the time when chil­dren are home. That is the time when it’s food, it’s clothes, it’s school­books. That is what it is. So, you come and preach love and your de­f­i­n­i­tion of love is to send peo­ple home,” Beck­les said.

“Un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, we are pre­pared to fight for work­ers. We are pre­pared to fight for CEPEP work­ers. We are pre­pared to fight for con­trac­tors. We are pre­pared to fight for WASA work­ers. We are pre­pared to en­sure that jus­tice at all costs ex­ists in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

A team of PNM lawyers has filed a civ­il ac­tion against CEPEP, on be­half of one of the fired con­trac­tors, seek­ing to stall the process.

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