Imbert: Govt fired 30,000 workers to fund public servants’ backpay

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Re­porter

gail.alexan­[email protected]

Deputy Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) leader Colm Im­bert has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of fir­ing 30,000 Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP), Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) and Reaf­foresta­tion work­ers to ac­cu­mu­late the $400 mil­lion to pay pub­lic ser­vants’ back­pay.

Im­bert added that the pub­lic ser­vants’ ten per cent salary hike will on­ly be eight per cent due to in­creased NIS con­tri­bu­tions.

Speak­ing at Wednes­day’s PNM San­gre Grande meet­ing, Im­bert said CEPEP, URP and Reaf­foresta­tion work­ers’ pay­ments would have cost around $650 mil­lion.

“You see now how they pay the ten per cent— send­ing home 30,000 to pay a hand­ful of peo­ple,” he added.

Im­bert said one of the PNM’s weak­ness­es is that the par­ty didn’t ad­ver­tise what it did and has now to im­prove that.

He de­tailed how the par­ty waived re­new­al fees for se­nior cit­i­zens’ pass­ports, dri­ver’s li­cences and had not in­sti­tut­ed new or in­creased tax­es dur­ing his tenure.

Im­bert said, “There are some very wealthy peo­ple in T&T who don’t pay tax­es, but the Gov­ern­ment halt­ing the T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty chan­nel to rec­ti­fy this, leaves the poor to be taxed.”

He said re­ports that KFC—once the high­est sell­ing in the world—has “gone through” a slow­down sales showed that peo­ple were no longer buy­ing chick­en, and was an in­di­ca­tion of what’s go­ing on in the econ­o­my.

Im­bert said the pub­lic need­ed to “send them” a mes­sage that T&T’s gone from democ­ra­cy to dic­ta­tor­ship, and be­lieved the Gov­ern­ment was us­ing the State of Emer­gency to stop protests.

Urg­ing PNM mo­bil­i­sa­tion, he said, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions hint at what hap­pens in sub­se­quent polls.

He not­ed that the PNM in 2013 won sev­en seats in the San­gre Grande cor­po­ra­tion, which pro­vid­ed the mo­men­tum to win the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tions.

“KPB means Kam­la Promis­es Bro­ken” - Bood­hu

Deputy PNM leader San­jiv Bood­hu said 2026 will bring great chal­lenges, and T&T has al­ready had a taste of it since April 28 2025.

“It’s as if a heav­i­ness take over T&T. Af­ter (UNC) sweet­ness we were promised, what sweet in goat mouth, sour else­where....the ini­tials ‘KPB’ means ‘Kam­la’s Promis­es Bro­ken’!”

He said neg­a­tives in the pub­lic sec­tor will re­sult in less pri­vate sec­tor em­ploy­ment.

Bood­hu claimed there was a de­sign­er Louis Vuit­ton hand­bag al­leged­ly cost­ing thou­sands and a $3,000 Café Barista cof­fee ma­chine on dis­play in the UNC Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la’s MP’s con­stituen­cy of­fice when peo­ple were suf­fer­ing.