Kamla: Government taking care of 'big boys,' not CEPEP workers

OPPOSITION Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar says the government continues to neglect the country's most vulnerable, while protecting the "big boys," particularly in state agencies, like the Community-Based Environmental Protection and Enhancement Programme (CEPEP).

At the United National Congress's (UNC) Monday night Virtual Report, Persad-Bissessar challenged the government about its spending, hours after the Standing Finance Committee met in Parliament on the granting of a supplementary allocation of $3 billion for the remaining months of the fiscal year ending in September.

She also spoke in the context of recent reports that CEPEP workers were facing a 33 per cent cut in salaries with reduced working hours.

Persad-Bissessar said with respect to the Standing Finance Committee meeting, pressing questions were not addressed.

"They sent us the agenda, the schedule, the heads, the line items, over a week ago, and yet today when we came to Standing Finance Committee – the place they would need to go to answer questions about how they intend to spend the money – I should say, well, not surprising: once again, the government has failed to be upfront and to account in terms of how they are going to spend the money. So questions today largely went unanswered."

The government listed about 14 heads of expenditure seeking increases, including the Elections and Boundaries Committee, the Offices of the Prime Minister and of the Attorney General and Ministry of Legal Affairs, the Tobago House of Assembly and the ministries of health, public administration, public utilities, community development, works and transport, housing, planning and development, and the police service.

Persad-Bissessar complained that when questions were posed, government members offered a generic response, saying, "Okay, okay, we'll get it to you by Wednesday."

She suggested they were stalling until Wednesday, when they will return to the Parliament to debate the supplementary allocation.

"And yet we will not have the details until Wednesday," she said. "Once again, the government fails to truly account to you, the taxpayers of Trinidad and Tobago."

Turning her attention to CEPEP, which falls under the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, she said, "I see the priority of the government is not with the ordinary worker, not with the normal, vulnerable person, the poor and the vulnerable – it's with the big boys. One law for the big boys and another for ordinary CEPEP workers, who take a 33 per cent cut.

"That is the government's priority in terms of how they spend their monies that they come to the Parliament to get approval for expenditure."

Persad-Bissessar drew reference to revelations made in Parliament last year when questions were raised about the compensation packages of CEPEP executives. It was reported that CEO Keith Eddy earns a base salary of $40,000, with a $2,500 entertainment allowance and a company vehicle.

Minister of Local Government Kazim Hosein issued a statement last Friday saying the company's board had decided on May 26 to shut down field operations, and in so doing, "keep the CEPEP contractors and their workers safe at home with their families."