Kamla: What’s wrong with giving youth jobs?

THE age and inexperience of candidates selected by the United National Congress (UNC) to contest the 2020 general election have been ridiculed by some. Even the Prime Minister took a jab at the UNC team which he described as “kindergarten.”

During a virtual presentation of the party’s 39 candidates on the weekend, Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar questioned what was so wrong with giving young and inexperienced people a job. “We were all young once. I wish I was back there (young) again,” she said chiding those who knocked the newbies.

“When I formed the government in 2010 there were only two of us with any Cabinet experience, Winston Dookeran and me. When we go back in, there will be three of us with Cabinet experience. So do not let your hearts be troubled. To say that you must have experience to do the job, you will never get a job because if you do not get the job to gain the experience how will you ever get a job?

“I have full confidence in our team.” There has been dissension in the UNC camp among the more senior members who were not selected, but Persad-Bissessar thanked all the unsuccessful people who submitted nominations. “I have always said there is a place and space at the table in the house of the rising sun.”

She proposed a wage subsidiary which is contained in the party’s economic recovery plan to create 50,000 jobs and to bolster the economy. She said this wage subsidiary is to assist small and medium employers and explained that under this agreement, government will pay part of the wages of workers, who may have been laid off, to get them back on the job.

“We will use the minimum wage as a ceiling and I am proposing that government would give a percentage of the wage as a subsidy to the employers so they can bring their workers back. “This is not for the people earning $100,000 a month.” Persad-Bissessar said she will be meeting with business people to work it out so it does not put a further burden on taxpayers.

“We have to help these businesses (SME’s) to get back on their feet again. When they (employers) lift up, they will lift up workers, workers will lift up the economy, lift up the country.” Confident that “yellow will sweep the country on August 10” and that she will give Rowley “the knockout blow”, Persad-Bissessar pledged lower taxes and removal of VAT from food items.

She said emphasis will also be placed on road construction and overall infrastructural development. Persad-Bissessar also gave an undertaking that a UNC government will amend the Children’s Life Fund to widen the categories of persons who would be entitled to get help.