Late payments dog Govt’s recruitment drive; workers complain it’s CEPEP work

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­[email protected]

Con­tracts on of­fer through the Gov­ern­ment’s re­cruit­ment dri­ve state that the pro­gramme is meant to pro­vide “train­ing and ex­pe­ri­ence,” with a list of du­ties which in­clude fetch­ing wa­ter, car­ry­ing tools, cut­ting grass and clean­ing drains and side­walks dur­ing the day and for some, at night.

Sev­er­al work­ers hired un­der the ini­tia­tive told Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk that the work close­ly re­sem­bles road­side labour long as­so­ci­at­ed with the Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP).

Oth­ers said the sit­u­a­tion is worse than CEPEP, par­tic­u­lar­ly be­cause pay­ments have been de­layed from in­cep­tion.

Some of the work­ers al­so said they were nev­er hired through the Na­tion­al Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve por­tal. In­stead, they said they left their re­sumes and names at Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress MPs’ con­stituen­cy of­fices short­ly af­ter the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion last year and were lat­er con­tact­ed about jobs. Many be­gan work in De­cem­ber.

A for­mer CEPEP work­er now em­ployed un­der the re­cruit­ment dri­ve said the dif­fer­ence be­tween the two pro­grammes is clear.

“With CEPEP we get our pay in time… every fort­night,” the work­er said.

Un­der the new pro­gramme, the work­er said, that has not been the case.

“The on­ly prob­lem we just have is the pay­ment on time.”

An­oth­er work­er said the de­lays have cre­at­ed se­ri­ous fi­nan­cial pres­sure.

“We on­ly re­ceived three cheques for three fort­nights,” the work­er said. “Some of the work­ers haven’t got­ten their pay yet.”

“So, look at the time; we are in March, and we on­ly got three cheques.”

Work­ers un­der the pro­gramme said they earn about $2,092 per fort­night af­ter de­duc­tions, but some said sev­er­al pay­ments up to $6,000 (three fort­nights) are still out­stand­ing.

A copy of the con­tract pro­vid­ed to Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk shows work­ers are en­gaged in ca­su­al labour un­der the pro­gramme.

Work­ers in­ter­viewed said they be­gan work­ing in De­cem­ber, but were on­ly asked to sign their con­tracts at the end of the ini­tial three-month pe­ri­od cov­er­ing De­cem­ber to Feb­ru­ary.

Sev­er­al work­ers said the con­tracts they were giv­en were dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 27.

The terms state the em­ploy­ment pe­ri­od is “three months in the first in­stance, with the op­tion to re­new for a fur­ther three months.”

What the con­tract says:

• ↓Pro­gramme pro­vides “train­ing and ex­pe­ri­ence.”

• Work­ers en­gaged as ca­su­al labour

• ↓Three-month con­tracts in the first in­stance

• ↓Re­new­al based on per­for­mance as­sess­ment

Du­ties list­ed in the job spec­i­fi­ca­tion:

• ↓Cut­ting grass and veg­e­ta­tion along road­ways

• ↓Clean­ing drains and wa­ter­ways

• Pow­er wash­ing in­fra­struc­ture

• ↓Sweep­ing streets and re­mov­ing garbage

• Dig­ging trench­es

• ↓Spread­ing grav­el to patch roads

• Car­ry­ing tools and equip­ment

• ↓Trans­port­ing wa­ter and sup­plies for work crews

• ↓Clean­ing side­walks and work­sites

With the first con­tract pe­ri­od now end­ing, the 1,801 work­ers are cur­rent­ly un­der­go­ing per­for­mance as­sess­ments, which will de­ter­mine whether their con­tracts are re­newed.

Many work­ers said they are now wor­ried about who will be sent home.

The doc­u­ment de­scribes the ini­tia­tive as a “de­vel­op­men­tal in­cu­ba­tor pro­gramme” in­tend­ed to pro­vide work ex­pe­ri­ence and train­ing.

How­ev­er, the job spec­i­fi­ca­tion for labour­ers lists du­ties which in­clude cut­ting veg­e­ta­tion and grass along road­ways, clean­ing drains and wa­ter­ways, pow­er wash­ing in­fra­struc­ture and sweep­ing streets and re­mov­ing garbage, to name a few.

Work­ers said when they first re­port­ed for du­ty, they were giv­en ba­sic in­struc­tions on road­side main­te­nance work. (See ta­ble)

The terms al­so state that work­ers are ex­pect­ed to work eight hours per day, fol­low­ing a stan­dard ten-day fort­night.

The doc­u­ment said the pro­gramme is man­aged by the NRD Pro­gramme Man­age­ment Unit, with su­per­vi­sion from min­istry su­per­vi­sors, pro­gramme check­ers and gangers (fore­men for labour­ers).

De­spite those for­mal terms, work­ers said there is still un­cer­tain­ty about how their per­for­mance will be as­sessed.

“We don’t re­al­ly have su­per­vi­sors or any­thing like that or any road of­fi­cer that comes and goes on the full hours that we work there,” one work­er said.

For one moth­er, the job was sup­posed to be a chance to get back on her feet af­ter years out of the work­force.

The woman, who will turn 60 this month, said she had been un­em­ployed since the start of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, when she lost her job as a le­gal sec­re­tary in Port-of-Spain.

“I got ter­mi­nat­ed from my job when COVID start­ed,” she said. “I used to work as a le­gal sec­re­tary, and when COVID start­ed, I got sent home from my job.”

She said she had been search­ing for work ever since, but her age made it dif­fi­cult.

“I have been home for five years, and be­cause of my age, I have been get­ting no jobs.”

When the op­por­tu­ni­ty came to work un­der the Na­tion­al Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve, she said she ac­cept­ed the job even though it meant do­ing man­u­al labour, which she had nev­er done be­fore.

“This is the first time I’m do­ing this,” she said. “All my life I worked in of­fices.”

But even get­ting to work has been a strug­gle.

At one point, while wait­ing for her salary that had not yet ar­rived, she said she rode a bi­cy­cle from Fe­lic­i­ty to reach the job site.

To cov­er trans­porta­tion costs, she said she al­so bor­rowed mon­ey from her son, who is en­rolled in a train­ing pro­gramme and re­ceives a small stipend.

“I took $800 from him for one month to go to work,” she said.

The fi­nan­cial pres­sure, she said, is some­thing many work­ers on the pro­gramme are fac­ing.

“We have moth­ers and grand­moth­ers bor­row­ing mon­ey to trav­el to work,” she said. “Peo­ple have babysit­ters to pay, school vans to pay, gro­ceries to buy and bills to pay.”

The woman claimed work­ers were told from the be­gin­ning that the pro­gramme was not prop­er­ly fund­ed.

“If the Gov­ern­ment knew they had no mon­ey to pay the work­ers, they should have said so,” she said.

“They should have told us they don’t have the mon­ey yet in­stead of em­ploy­ing peo­ple.”

Be­yond the fi­nan­cial stress, she said her life has al­so been shaped by years of per­son­al hard­ship.

“This is my sec­ond mar­riage, and my hus­band was an al­co­holic,” she said. “I have been through every type of abuse you could think about.”

De­spite the dif­fi­cul­ties, she said she con­tin­ues show­ing up for work each day.

“I am (speak­ing out) not on­ly for my­self,” she said. “I am fight­ing for the peo­ple.”

“If they ter­mi­nate my con­tract, what can I do? Every­thing is in God’s hands.”

Oth­er work­ers who spoke said they did not want their names pub­lished be­cause they feared los­ing their jobs.

They said they were con­cerned about ter­mi­na­tion, dis­crim­i­na­tion or abuse if they spoke pub­licly and asked that their iden­ti­ties not be re­vealed so as not to jeop­ar­dise their tem­po­rary bread and but­ter.

Even af­ter Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John said com­plaints could be in­ves­ti­gat­ed if work­ers came for­ward with names, sev­er­al work­ers said they were re­luc­tant to do so.

“How can they not be paid?” John said when con­tact­ed last Tues­day.

She said spe­cif­ic com­plaints would have to be iden­ti­fied be­fore the min­istry could in­ves­ti­gate.

“You have to say who it is… John Doe say they have not been paid. I will then call some­one at the min­istry and say John Doe of so-and-so say they have not been paid, and they will tell me if that is so, if it isn’t so.”

John al­so de­fend­ed the pro­gramme and said re­cruit­ment is con­tin­u­ing.

“We’re do­ing our work. We’re re­cruit­ing. We keep re­cruit­ing,” she said.

She added that oth­er min­istries were al­so hir­ing work­ers through the ini­tia­tive.

The Na­tion­al Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve was launched on Oc­to­ber 19, 2025, as a large-scale hir­ing ef­fort across gov­ern­ment min­istries.

At the time, the Prime Min­is­ter said the pro­gramme would cre­ate more than 20,000 jobs across Trinidad and To­ba­go. The Labour Min­is­ter, Leroy Bap­tiste, then said 20,000 op­por­tu­ni­ties in the first in­stance, then that fig­ure should rise to 50,000 in the sec­ond phase. Over 110,000 peo­ple ap­plied.

The Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture lat­er con­firmed that the Cab­i­net ap­proved the en­gage­ment of 1,801 ca­su­al work­ers un­der the pro­gramme to as­sist with field op­er­a­tions.

The min­is­ter al­so said by March 8 (to­day), an­oth­er 800 work­ers are ex­pect­ed to be en­gaged to ex­pand teams work­ing across the coun­try. John said every­thing is in place for this next tranche.

Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk has not yet been able to as­cer­tain how the pro­gramme is be­ing fund­ed.

Dur­ing the 2026 Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo an­nounced a $475 mil­lion Em­ploy­ment Fund aimed at sup­port­ing job cre­ation.

Min­is­ter Tan­coo was asked sev­er­al ques­tions about the pro­gramme’s fi­nances, in­clud­ing:

1. How much of the $475 mil­lion Em­ploy­ment Fund has been spent so far?

2. Un­der which vote are salaries for these hires be­ing paid?

3. Has the Per­son­al Emol­u­ments Bill in­creased since the pro­gramme be­gan?

4. Are work­ers be­ing paid as em­ploy­ees or con­trac­tors?

5. What is the es­ti­mat­ed an­nu­al cost of the hires to date?

When first con­tact­ed, Tan­coo said he did not have that kind of in­for­ma­tion at his dis­pos­al at this time.

Fol­low-up ques­tions sent to the min­is­ter did not re­ceive a re­sponse up to the time of pub­li­ca­tion.