Opposition warns of major job cuts at State agencies

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er

@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is ac­cus­ing Gov­ern­ment of plan­ning ma­jor job cuts across min­istries and State agen­cies.

Dur­ing her first press con­fer­ence as Leader of the Op­po­si­tion held at the Of­fice of the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion on Charles Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Beck­les said the coun­try would soon come to re­alise that when the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) wins, every­body did not win.

Beck­les said, “You can­not with­in a month of as­sum­ing of­fice or the first week or sec­ond week, whether you go to WASA (Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty), whether you go to TSTT (Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed), whether you go to the Min­istry of Youth (Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice), your first ob­jec­tive is to send a clear mes­sage to em­ploy­ees that you’re go­ing to re­view con­tracts, you’re go­ing to re­view poli­cies, and you’re go­ing to re­move per­sons.

“So, the pub­lic very soon will un­der­stand in no un­cer­tain terms that they re­al­ly were not se­ri­ous that every­body was go­ing to win. What they’re do­ing is mak­ing it abun­dant­ly clear that they are go­ing to be re­mov­ing per­sons. They have gone in­to sev­er­al min­istries to re­move any­body who they feel they want to re­move and re­place them with their peo­ple.”

Beck­les’ crit­i­cism fol­lows both Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen re­veal­ing that po­si­tions at WASA and TSTT as well as de­part­ments un­der the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry were be­ing re­viewed.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so claimed pub­lic ser­vants, es­pe­cial­ly per­ma­nent sec­re­taries no longer want to serve in these po­si­tions.

This af­ter the PS from the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty was sent to an­oth­er min­istry.

“Peo­ple are mak­ing it very clear that they are not go­ing to of­fer them­selves to serve on boards. Peo­ple feel that they are go­ing to find their pic­tures, prob­a­bly even their per­son­al busi­ness on the tele­vi­sion, ra­dio and so­cial me­dia, par­tic­u­lar­ly per­ma­nent sec­re­taries and deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­taries.”

Mean­while, Op­po­si­tion MP Colm Im­bert said board mem­bers of pub­licly list­ed com­pa­nies should not be forced to step down be­cause of a change in gov­ern­ment.

The chair­man of the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Port De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (Plipde­co) An­nette Wat­tie has re­port­ed­ly been in­struct­ed to re­sign by the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture. But Im­bert said there was a process that must be fol­lowed at pub­licly list­ed com­pa­nies.

Im­bert said, “If the di­rec­tors just re­sign en masse, Plipde­co, a list­ed com­pa­ny, would be in breach of the Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion act. So, it would be ir­re­spon­si­ble of the di­rec­tors of Plipde­co, which is a lim­it­ed li­a­bil­i­ty com­pa­ny. It’s gov­erned by the Com­pa­nies Act and by the Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion and the rules of the Stock Ex­change. These peo­ple have fidu­cia­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. They could be fined by the Reg­is­trar of Com­pa­nies.”

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi said he had been in­formed of mas­sive job cuts to come at the CEPEP Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed.

How­ev­er, Gov­ern­ment re­mained un­both­ered by the Op­po­si­tion’s as­ser­tions.

When Guardian Me­dia reached out to Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John, she re­it­er­at­ed their stance.  

“The Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go spoke and she said who there un­der PNM leave. Re­sign. There­fore, I have noth­ing else to add,” John said.

Padarath said jobs cuts at min­istries are aimed at cut­ting out fi­nan­cial waste.

“We are 26 seats strong in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and there­fore we have been giv­en a con­sti­tu­tion­al ma­jor­i­ty in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to ef­fect mean­ing­ful change. What that change will look will be de­ter­mined based on what we have found in min­istries and State en­ter­pris­es to cut out the waste, mis­man­age­ment and cor­rup­tion of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.”

At­tempts to con­tact Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar were fu­tile yes­ter­day.