TPP denies CEPEP, URP jobs will be cut

The To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) is reaf­firm­ing its promise not to cut jobs of CEPEP and URP work­ers in To­ba­go, as was done to thou­sands of peo­ple in Trinidad.

Ac­cord­ing to the par­ty, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) claims that its ad­min­is­tra­tion will fire CEPEP or URP work­ers are false, reck­less and des­per­ate lies.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the TPP ac­cused the PNM of spread­ing fake news out of po­lit­i­cal des­per­a­tion, as it says the PNM faces re­jec­tion by To­bag­o­ni­ans in the up­com­ing THA elec­tions.

In­stead, the par­ty re­vealed the THA has al­ready re­ceived all re­leas­es from the Min­istry of Fi­nance to pay CEPEP and URP work­ers for the fis­cal year 2026.

Mean­while, the PNM is promis­ing its own job se­cu­ri­ty for To­bag­o­ni­ans.

Dur­ing a meet­ing in Char­lot­teville on Sat­ur­day, PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis promised per­ma­nent em­ploy­ment for To­bag­o­ni­ans who pre­vi­ous­ly ben­e­fit­ed from work­ing short-term work pro­grammes.

Den­nis said, “I know many of you from this dis­trict ben­e­fit­ed from some­thing we called 10 days. We call it 10 days back in the day. To­day, they are call­ing it 10 on, 10 off. And my com­mit­ment to the young men in this dis­trict that were hand­ed those jobs by this cur­rent area rep­re­sen­ta­tive and Chief Sec­re­tary, we are say­ing to you, the peo­ple of this dis­trict and to the peo­ple across To­ba­go, that while our 10 on 10 off may stop a hole, we are say­ing that you de­serve bet­ter than that. And there­fore, it is our com­mit­ment to en­sure that when you elect us back in­to of­fice, we will en­sure that every sin­gle To­bag­on­ian on a short-term 10 on 10 off is giv­en full per­ma­nent em­ploy­ment with­in a rea­son­able time­frame. .. And we are say­ing to you, the peo­ple of To­ba­go, to en­sure that you go out to the polls and vote for change. Be­cause af­ter four years, af­ter four years of poor rep­re­sen­ta­tion, af­ter four years of this sell­ing out of To­ba­go’s pat­ri­mo­ny and re­sources to out­siders, af­ter four years of cor­rup­tion, af­ter four years of poor rep­re­sen­ta­tion, af­ter four years of not even hav­ing a de­cent health­care ser­vice, not even ac­cess to am­bu­lances we have at this point in time on the is­land, af­ter four years of abuse, I’m say­ing it is time to re­turn to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and we have to start the change.”