Cepep step-down

MORE DETAILS are needed on the use of Community-Based Environmental Protection and Enhancement Programme (Cepep) workers to serve covid19 step-down facilities.

The arrangement announced on Tuesday seems merely the latest episode in a long history of inefficiency, abuse and cat-in-bag spending associated with the State’s make-work programmes.

According to Cepep, since April a “partnership” began with the Ministry of Health, the Defence Force and the University of the West Indies involving 400 workers across four locations.

“The company provides landscaping services, cutting of fire trails, and keeping both the outer and inner perimeters for the listed facilities clean and clear of all debris,” company officials said in a press release. School premises were also spruced up.

All of this is useful, but Cepep sees things somewhat grandiosely. In its release, it aligned itself with the “critical importance” of a collective effort to “flatten the curve and keep our citizens safe and covid19-free.”

Left unaddressed were key questions. Does this arrangement have additional costs?

During lockdown, Minister of Finance Colm Imbert confirmed Cepep workers – there are about 8,000 – were still being paid. Some months before, these workers enjoyed a 15 per cent pay hike.

Are the 400 workers a separate batch? Or are they already covered by the current Cepep allocation, which is between $300 million and $600 million a year, depending on estimates?

Cepep, and similar programmes like the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP), have been at the forefront of how the State tackles unemployment. While laudable in their goals, and while a vital source of earnings for many, these programmes have never lived up to their hype.

What happened to the idea of “teaching a man to fish”? That is, helping people help themselves? Giving workers transferable skills? Improving training? Absorbing workers into the private sector?

Each government has spoken of such things, yet today we have Cepep workers fighting covid19 with brooms.

Instead of pipe dreams, should the parties not admit these arrangements are not employment schemes but simply unemployment grants or dole?

The State already has thousands on its payroll, most of whom continued to be paid during the lockdown.

When we consider this, plus the number of people kept technically “employed” by things like Cepep and URP, it becomes evident that the rationale for these programmes seems to relate more to the need for positive statistics, rather than really helping people stand on their own two feet.

The crowning irony is the State pays officials to clean the step-down spaces before the Cepep workers move in, then pays more officials to supervise the Cepep workers to ensure health and safety.

It’s another step down for a programme seemingly immune to change.