The Government is not just dismissing employees of URP and CEPEP, but there are plans in place for job creation.
This is according to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, as she responded to terminations across both programmes in the past few weeks.
“We don’t intend to just dismiss these persons, as happened with CEPEP, with the URP. We do have plans for job creation.”
Speaking to reporters outside Parliament on Friday afternoon, she insisted that the current state of the programmes is one that “cannot continue.”
“Well, it’s unfortunate that we are at this stage where people need jobs, people need to be working. But we cannot, as I said to you, I think it was yesterday, I love people, but I don’t like ghosts. And therefore, we have to weed out the corrupt ones. We have to weed out the ghosts.”
The “ghosts” she referred to follow a newspaper report in which URP officials noted that thousands of “ghosts” have been removed from the payroll, having been officially registered to work but not showing up.
Minister of Works and Infrastructure Jearlean John also defended the Government’s move.
“I just read that 8,000 ghosts, so you have to clean that up. You can’t have voted so overwhelmingly for a new Government and expect the same thing.”
But Mrs. Persad-Bissessar said there is an even bigger problem: “It’s not just about the corruption and the ghost gangs. It’s the infiltration by criminal elements. And as you know, I am totally against any criminality at any stage. Maybe you’ll say we can’t stop it from the days of Adam and Eve, but we have to do all we can to root out criminality.”
Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister, Barry Padarath, pointed out that the Government’s first priority is protecting the interests and safety of citizens.
“This is a situation that has been left to languish for a number of years because the authorities were also raising these matters with the former administration, who had been in power for over nine and a half years and allowed this to flourish under them. And that is why the crime has run away. The gangs had felt as though they were empowered because they were receiving funding from the State. And therefore, while we understand that there are concerns surrounding these programmes on a social level, the onus on us first and foremost is protecting the interests and the safety of our nation’s citizens.”
However, the Prime Minister assured that alternative employment opportunities will be announced.
“In terms of jobs, we do have several measures going forward for creating jobs. And in the Budget, which will be coming up soon, we will roll out and give more details. But we don’t intend to just dismiss these persons, as happened with CEPEP and URP. We do have plans for job creation, which I’ll share with you on another occasion.”
The Prime Minister said there will be hard decisions that have to be made, pointing out that changes are necessary.