Penny bashes Kamla over Govt’s failed recruitment drive

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­[email protected]

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has con­demned the Gov­ern­ment’s Oc­to­ber 2025 na­tion­al re­cruit­ment dri­ve as a “farce” and “pub­lic­i­ty stunt,” as she not­ed the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion had hired a mere 1,801 peo­ple de­spite promis­ing 20,000 jobs.

Beck­les said this has come even while the Gov­ern­ment had put 70,000 cit­i­zens on the bread­line.

In a scathing state­ment yes­ter­day, in re­sponse to an ex­clu­sive Sun­day Guardian re­port which de­tailed the fig­ures, Beck­les ac­cused the Prime Min­is­ter of us­ing the promise of thou­sands of jobs as a smoke screen to mask what the Op­po­si­tion de­scribes as “the most se­vere eco­nom­ic down­turn in the na­tion’s his­to­ry.”

Beck­les said, “Af­ter fir­ing over 70,000 hon­est peo­ple in just ten months, and hir­ing on­ly 1,801, this UNC Gov­ern­ment has cre­at­ed the most se­vere eco­nom­ic de­pres­sion our na­tion has ever seen. The Gov­ern­ment’s much-pub­li­cised Na­tion­al Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve has been a cat­a­stroph­ic fail­ure, de­liv­er­ing on­ly 1,801 jobs out of the 20,000 promised to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go in Oc­to­ber 2025 and some 50,000 jobs to win the elec­tion.

“The Prime Min­is­ter had vowed that young peo­ple, those who had been fired, and the na­tion at large would ben­e­fit, but this PR stunt has de­liv­ered al­most noth­ing. When this Gov­ern­ment stood be­fore the na­tion in Oc­to­ber and made grand promis­es of 20,000 jobs, they cre­at­ed an ex­pec­ta­tion that thou­sands of hope­ful cit­i­zens be­lieved. Over 110,000 peo­ple ap­plied, con­vinced that re­al re­lief was fi­nal­ly un­der­way. To­day, less than two per cent of ap­pli­cants have been hired, ex­pos­ing the re­cruit­ment dri­ve as a farce de­signed to de­flect at­ten­tion and mis­lead the most vul­ner­a­ble.”

Beck­les al­so bashed Per­sad-Bisses­sar for de­scrib­ing the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) and Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) as “slav­ery” while do­ing noth­ing to sup­port those left un­em­ployed in the af­ter­math of their shut­down.

Beck­les said cit­i­zens now feel be­trayed by the Gov­ern­ment, as the cost of liv­ing con­tin­ues to rise, de­scrib­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s promis­es as “de­pres­sion de­cep­tion.”

She added, “The hu­man cost of this “de­pres­sion de­cep­tion” is se­vere. Every un­ful­filled promise af­fects fam­i­lies un­able to pay ris­ing rent, par­ents strug­gling to pro­vide for their chil­dren, young peo­ple un­able to start their lives, and work­ers de­nied dig­ni­ty in hon­est em­ploy­ment as the cost of liv­ing ris­es. When the Gov­ern­ment pre­sent­ed its bud­get, I de­scribed it as fake and fraud­u­lent. The so-called re­cruit­ment dri­ve was noth­ing more than a pub­lic­i­ty stunt, with no re­al fund­ing, no prop­er struc­ture, and no cred­i­ble plan to hire 20,000 peo­ple.

“While mem­bers of this Gov­ern­ment dis­grace them­selves on Hy­att stages, record emp­ty, in­sult­ing videos through their min­istries, cen­sor truth­ful ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, trav­el on ex­ot­ic trips, and hire UNC ‘big boys’ and ‘big girls,’ the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go re­main in the dark, strug­gling, wait­ing, and aban­doned. The Gov­ern­ment must ac­count to the tens of thou­sands who were fired and who ap­plied for their fake re­cruit­ment dri­ve. The peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go feel be­trayed and de­ceived by the UNC’s emp­ty job promis­es and con­tin­ue to face grow­ing hard­ships and ris­ing liv­ing costs.”

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj is warn­ing young vot­ers hop­ing for op­por­tu­ni­ties that they will be left dis­ap­point­ed.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via tele­phone yes­ter­day, he said the Gov­ern­ment sim­ply does not have the fi­nances to meet the ex­pec­ta­tions of the pop­u­la­tion.

Ram­samooj said, “There is a his­tor­i­cal chal­lenge be­tween promis­es made on a po­lit­i­cal cam­paign and the re­al­i­ty the gov­ern­ment con­fronts. The num­ber of young vot­ers and per­haps un­em­ployed vot­ers who cast their bal­lot with an ex­pec­ta­tion of a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life would be sore­ly dis­ap­point­ed by the lack of op­por­tu­ni­ties. This is be­cause the fi­nan­cial re­al­i­ty is that the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go does not have the fi­nan­cial re­sources to meet the ex­pec­ta­tion of the pop­u­la­tion. This is and has been our re­al­i­ty for quite a cou­ple of years.”

He added, “The present Gov­ern­ment does not have the ca­pac­i­ty to pro­duce cam­paign ex­cus­es. They are now the Gov­ern­ment and must utilise the re­sources of the coun­try to min­imise the pub­lic’s hurt. The blame game, the po­lit­i­cal blame game, is now ir­rel­e­vant as the cost-of-liv­ing in­creas­es and as the mid­dle-class live-in fear of pover­ty.”