By Staff Editor
(Trinidad Express) The mass firings of Commu-nity-based Environmental Protection and Enhancement Programme (CEPEP) and reforestation workers were seemingly planned to coincide with the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the hope that today鈥檚 visit would serve as a distraction to the attention that the 鈥渂rutalising鈥 of 19,000 workers would receive.
This was the view of People鈥檚 National Movement (PNM) MP Marvin Gonzales, who along with his colleague Faris Al-Rawi held a news conference at Balisier House, Port of Spain, yesterday to address the recent development of the pla-cing on the breadline of 4,608 forestry workers and contractors.
Saying that this firing spree did not happen overnight, Gonzales said: 鈥淎nd, therefore, the timing of this butchering that has ta-ken place at CEPEP and refor-es-tation programme, and the timing of the visit of this head of state could probably be intended to be a political distraction.
鈥淭hey are very calculated. So it is perhaps a well-coordinated political distraction to get the population to focus on this high-level visit as opposed to what is happening to the 19,000 citizens losing their jobs and not knowing how they鈥檙e going to feed their families.鈥
鈥淣ever in the history of Government transition or political transition鈥ave 19,000 workers felt the brunt of transition that came out by revenge, spite and vindictiveness. And I am saying this because when you listen to the Government鈥檚 key spokespersons on this issue, especially 鈥楤arry (Padarath) the Butcher鈥, and 鈥楥ollateral Damage Clyde (Elder)鈥, it speaks to a level of wickedness that is unprecedented in the history of Trinidad and Tobago,鈥 he said.
(Padarath is Minister of Public Utilities and Elder is a Minister in the Ministry of Public Utilities, which is responsible for CEPEP).
Al-Rawi slammed Elder for referring to the workers as collateral damage.
鈥淗ow could a man who comes from the union be telling people they are collateral damage? Doesn鈥檛 that betray an entire lifetime of work?鈥 Al-Rawi said.
Gonzales added that Elder, the first union leader from the Government to com-ment on the situation, should have described single mothers and those affected in such terms.
鈥淚t says a lot about their mindset that they are prepared to do what is politically convenient,鈥 he said.
Giving a breakdown of the entire list of 19,810 terminations, Al-Rawi said it consisted of 10,700 CEPEP workers, 4,608 forestry workers, 140 change agents in the Rural Development Ministry, 400 workers at the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA), 700 workers being Covid employees from the RHA (regional health authority), another 900 from another RHA, ten executive managers at WASA, the governor of the Central Bank, ten at the Attorney General鈥檚 Office, and 2,341 interns at the Housing Development Corporation (HDC).
鈥楴aked, abhorrent, disgusting behaviour鈥
鈥淎 total of 19,810 people who have been terminated鈥n a mere seven weeks of yellow is the curse, and that is something that the population must stand up to, pay attention because if the sole reason coming so far is your name is associated with the PNM鈥f you could have your name advertised as receiving a Bus Route pass鈥.
鈥淭hat is what you call naked, abhorrent, disgusting behaviour on the part of a Government. And all that I could do is to plead with the Government in part to say, 鈥楶lease have mercy for the people who are closest to the ground, those who earn $120 a day,鈥 Al-Rawi said.
He compared this current scenario with the closure of Petrotrin in 2018 where there was a full national explanation, where the unions were involved and the termination benefits amounted to a substantial figure.
鈥淚t was never that 20,000 people just work up one morning and found themselves with no employment,鈥 he said.
Gonzales said the Parliament just approved for the Ministry of Rural Development a further supplementation of $60 million for CEPEP, which was to pay for its salaries and management fees for contractors, including 12 additional contractors who were brought into the programme.
鈥淎nd the minister said that that would be enough to enable the programme to pay contractual obligations towards the end of this fiscal year. And nowhere, absolutely nowhere, did the minister indicate in the contribution that the plan of the Government was to do exactly what they鈥檙e doing right now,鈥 he said,
Al-Rawi noted that the boards of these companies have not been populated.
He said the situation 鈥渟creams of things like breach of the Constitution in terms of rights. It screams of the need for judicial review to look at these decisions.鈥
He said the PNM legal team, which included Senior Counsel Larry Lalla and Keith Scotland, Gonzales, Kareem Marcelle and himself, was acting with emergency, urgency and alacrity.
He said the team was doing the work pro bono. The team was meeting after the media conference yesterday.
He said very interestingly, all of the information on the CEPEP website was removed and the site is now down.