CEPEP betrayal

SASCHA WIL­SON

& CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

Sev­er­al for­mer Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) work­ers who went to the com­pa­ny’s head­quar­ters in Ste Madeleine seek­ing an­swers yes­ter­day, were left dis­ap­point­ed, feel­ing be­trayed and un­cer­tain about their fu­ture.

On Fri­day, the Gov­ern­ment ter­mi­nat­ed the con­tracts of over 300 CEPEP con­trac­tors across the coun­try, a move the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) claimed dis­placed more than 10,500 work­ers.

Some for­mer work­ers told Guardian Me­dia that they were hop­ing to meet a CEPEP of­fi­cial yes­ter­day, but that did not hap­pen.

Visham Ma­haraj, 50, a fa­ther of three, in­clud­ing a child with cere­bral pal­sy, had been em­ployed as a CEPEP labour­er for half his life.

As the lone bread­win­ner for his fam­i­ly, he ad­mit­ted to be­ing scared of los­ing his home be­cause he could no longer pay his mort­gage, pro­vide for his wife or chil­dren, send them to school, or put food on the ta­ble.

His 17-year-old son at­tends the La­dy Ho­choy in­sti­tu­tion, while his oth­er two chil­dren, ages 11 and 15, at­tend sec­ondary school.

“It come like every­thing shut down. The bread­win­ner in the house loss so every­body loss. I was the bread­win­ner, the man bring­ing in a dol­lar, so I don’t have a work so every­body have to hold on.”

Ma­haraj, who lives in a Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) home, said his mort­gage is $2,000 month­ly.

“I re­al­ly don’t know what to do,” he lament­ed. Ma­haraj said he col­lect­ed his last salary on Fri­day.

“To loss your work just so, it hard. You work­ing 25 years for a com­pa­ny and just so you get throw out. We just get pay and when we get pay, a mes­sage come to we, and that was it,” he lament­ed.

Ma­haraj is still hop­ing to get his job back. In the mean­time, how­ev­er, he wants a let­ter from CEPEP to the HDC pledg­ing to pay his mort­gage un­til he’s re­hired or finds an­oth­er source of in­come.

An­oth­er work­er, Em­manuel Brown, plead­ed with Gov­ern­ment to re­con­sid­er the ter­mi­na­tion of con­tracts.

“I have no oth­er op­tions,” he lament­ed. Over the last two years, he said, he has been us­ing his “lil mon­ey” from CEPEP to re­build his home.

“Since this hap­pen it be­ing a both­er to me and I will say how I af­fect­ed, bad­ly, be­cause I have no oth­er in­come. I have no fam­i­ly to help me or as­sist me,” said Brown.

June Joseph, a sin­gle moth­er, com­plained that she was al­so the main bread­win­ner in her house­hold. She cares for her five grand­chil­dren—all mi­nors—and two chil­dren, ages 18 and 30.

One of her daugh­ters still at­tends school, while the oth­er is un­able to work due to a med­ical is­sue.

“I have my bills to pay. I have my in­sur­ance to pay,” lament­ed Joseph.

“Why al­lyuh do­ing this to peo­ple right about now? School clos­ing and this is the time al­lyuh do­ing this to peo­ple? Peo­ple have to buy books, and this is not the time to do this.”

She had been a CEPEP work­er for four years. Over in St He­le­na, over 30 CEPEP work­ers were left stunned and emo­tion­al yes­ter­day morn­ing, af­ter be­ing of­fi­cial­ly in­formed dur­ing a meet­ing at Eco Park that they no longer had jobs.

The work­ers, as­signed to Pur­vey Re­sources and Sys­tems Lim­it­ed, which served com­mu­ni­ties in St He­le­na, El Car­men and Las Lo­mas, said they were called to the park, where the con­trac­tor con­firmed their con­tract had been end­ed by CEPEP ef­fec­tive last Fri­day.

“We’re not feel­ing so good. We’re feel­ing sad,” said Sim­mi, who worked with the team for near­ly sev­en years. “Thir­ty work­ers—we’re on the bread­line. And you know, school open­ing just now. Par­ents need to buy books and run to school. We’re re­al­ly and tru­ly sad.”

For many, CEPEP was more than a job—it was their main source of in­come and sta­bil­i­ty. “This CEPEP work did a lot for me,” Sim­mi said.

“It helped me send my child to school. It helped me fin­ish my house. So, it af­fect­ed me per­son­al­ly.” Sim­mi asked that we use that name for fear of vic­tim­i­sa­tion, hold­ing out hope that she may still get a call in the fu­ture to re­turn to her job.

Work­er Patrice, who re­cent­ly start­ed rent­ing, said the news was dev­as­tat­ing.

“This come like a shock­er for me,” she said.

“Now I have to look for some­thing else un­til—if—they get back the con­tract. I don’t have chil­dren, but rent, In­ter­net, food—bills still com­ing. When I heard the news, I cried. We all cried. It was very emo­tion­al.”

The work­ers ex­pressed frus­tra­tion that they were left in the dark and were not con­sult­ed or fore­warned.

“We are the sto­ries,” one woman said.

“It’s not about the con­trac­tors—it’s about we, the work­ers.”

Alvin, a fa­ther of three, said the tim­ing couldn’t be worse.

“Right now, I’m not feel­ing too good about it,” he said.

“I still have to pay bills and school com­ing just now. One of my chil­dren go­ing in­to high school. My wife heard about it on so­cial me­dia be­fore I could even tell her. I done set my­self to look for an­oth­er job, but we didn’t ex­pect it to hap­pen so fast.”

The work­ers are now call­ing on the new Gov­ern­ment to step in and as­sist.

“We would be glad if the Gov­ern­ment—the new Gov­ern­ment in pow­er—could do some­thing for the work­ers,” Sim­mi said.

The move came weeks af­ter Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath an­nounced at a post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence that there would be an au­dit in­to CEPEP.

On June 5, Padarath claimed over 300 CEPEP con­tracts were re­newed for three years from April 14 to April 24, be­fore the Gen­er­al Elec­tion, al­though there was no Cab­i­net ap­proval for this to be done.

On Sun­day, Padarath re­spond­ed to the back­lash, say­ing the State in­tends to re­turn CEPEP to its “orig­i­nal moor­ings” and im­ple­ment poli­cies that em­pow­er work­ers be­yond cut­ting grass for the rest of their lives.

Speak­ing at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) head­quar­ters in Ch­agua­nas, Padarath said more sus­tain­able job op­por­tu­ni­ties are com­ing and ac­cused the PNM of us­ing af­fect­ed work­ers for po­lit­i­cal gain.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and her col­leagues have or­gan­ised a le­gal team to ex­plore pos­si­ble ac­tion against the Gov­ern­ment.