ROSEMARIE SANT
Rural Development and Local Government Minister Franklin Khan is promising a return of “sanity” to the Community-based Environmental Protection and Enhancement Programme (CEPEP) which he describes as “a political hotbed which appeared to have lost its moorings in the last five years.”
Khan was assigned the responsibility for CEPEP at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley.
Since September last year when the PNM Government took office, the programme had been under the portfolio of Public Utilities Minister Ancil Antoine.
The move comes as CEPEP moves to terminate as many as 175 contractors out of the 265 contractors on its payroll, a decision which has left much of the 12,000-strong workforce in a state of anxiety. Each contractor has about six work gangs with ten employees each. The annual budget for the programme stands at approximately $300 million.
Over the years, CEPEP employees have been used to bolster crowds at political rallies by both the ruling People’s National Movement and the United National Congress and many workers admitted in the past that their jobs depended on whom they voted for.
CEPEP chairman Trevor Lynch told the T&T Guardian on Wednesday that the jobs of the 12,000 workers were safe but that depended on the budgetary allocation in the next fiscal year. He emphasised that the change of the majority of contractors would not affect the rank and file employees, many of whom were single parents.
Khan would not say whether Rowley was unhappy with the way the programme had progressed under the Ministry of Public Utilities, telling the T&T Guardian that it was the “sole responsibility of the Prime Minister to assign portfolios.”
But he sought to dispel any notion that the move was linked to the upcoming Local Government elections which are due by January 2017. He said the move was not “specific to do with Local Government election.”
Told that by using the word specific he left the door open for people to speculate on the reason, Khan said: “People will always interpret things as they want.” Khan is also chairman of the ruling People’s National Movement and a key strategist in the party’s election machinery.
The minister, who is still “taking things a bit easy” following triple by-pass surgery earlier this year, said the bottom line is that the mandate of CEPEP is “more synchronised with the Ministry of Local Government...rather than the Ministry of Public Utilities.”
He said there are “administrative issues with CEPEP” which he intended to address.
Khan admitted that he still has to be “briefed” about the programme. But he intends to meet with the CEPEP chairman Trevor Lynch and the board on Monday to discuss the programme. He is keen to find out “what has been the cause for the reduction in productivity in the programme.”
Khan said: “We spending a hell of a lot of money, but we not getting value. I intend to bring some sanity back to the programme. CEPEP is a political hotbed and I will give myself some time to recommend some changes.”
He said when the programme was conceptualised by former prime minister Patrick Manning, who died in July, “it was to help budding entrepreneurs who did not have the capital base and there is also the environmental element to improve the environmental ambiance. But it seems that the programme lost its moorings in the last five years,” when the People’s Partnership was in power.
But former Housing minister Dr Roodal Moonilal yesterday dismissed that notion, saying “under our administration CEPEP was doing much more than cutting grass.
He said: “We had a marine element, environmental, and a small drainage programme to prevent flooding. That is why in the last five years there were no major floods in the country.”
Moonilal: A move to
politicise the programme
Moonilal said the Prime Minister’s decision to re-assign the programme to Khan was “a vote of no confidence in the Minister of Public Utilities Ancil Antoine,” who he said “failed to manage the programme properly.”
He said since September last year the company had “changed general managers five times.” He also felt that the shift “is a blatant and naked attempt at discrimination and victimisation” coming as it does mere months before the Local Government elections which are due by January 2017.
Moonilal said: “It is a blatant attempt to politicise the programme by giving control to the chairman of the party. Clearly there is an attempt to pass the programme to the General Council of the PNM.” He said in the period prior to 2010 before the People’s Partnership came to power “several members of the PNM General Council were contractors in CEPEP.”
Khan said there is “always a political side to CEPEP,” but he said “whether is PNM or UNC contractors we will be even-handed in giving out contracts.”