An Opposition Senator says many of the CEPEP workers who are now out of a job voted for the UNC in the General Election just over two months ago.
This, as another member is questioning who will benefit from the supplementary allocation for CEPEP of just over 60 million dollars.
In response, a Government Minister said that a large majority of the CEPEP contractors received contracts in constituencies that had been held by the PNM under the former PNM administration.
00:00You campaigned on a when UNC win, everybody wins. That was a fraud. You campaigned on love. You said that once you were given the opportunity, I'm sure many of those CPEP workers probably voted for the UNC at the last election.
00:20Opposition Senator Foster Cummings, during the Senate's debate of the government's supplementary appropriation of $3.14 billion to the 2025 budget just two days after the opposition party, the PNM, said it will offer free legal advice to the contractors and workers at CPEP who are now without a source of income.
00:40Earlier in the debate, Labor Minister Leroy Batiste spoke about job losses during the 2015-2025 PNM administration.
00:50I just remember petro-trade workers, 5,000 workers out of their jobs. TSTT workers, 2,000 workers out of their jobs. TDC, 200s of workers out of their jobs in the last 10 years.
01:09My God, what world are they living in?
01:17Opposition Senator Faris al-Rawi, who served in the Cabinet of the former PNM administration, responded.
01:23But as the Minister of Labor and as a former trade unionist, the Honorable Member made absolutely no mention of what happened in the last seven weeks alone.
01:3810,700 CPEP workers fired with prejudice, some argue.
01:43Senator Faris added job losses at WASA, the Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government, and claims of job losses in two RHAs and the Attorney General's office in its calculation of those sent home under the new UNC-led government.
01:58That's 12,960 people in seven weeks.
02:04And the Honorable Minister of Labor has the goal to talk about 7,000 workers in 10 years.
02:15Senator Al-Rawi then returned to the bill.
02:18As he noted, CPEP was allocated a supplementary allocation of $60.5 million for the payment of contractors, including 12 additional contractors.
02:28The entire workforce, nearly 11,000 people have been dismissed, and therefore I wonder what on earth is going to be the situation with that $60.5 million,
02:43because it cannot be that it is to pay for 12 new CPEP contracts when I know for fact that only two contracts were relative to that conversation.
02:54Senator David Nakhid, a parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs, later joined the debate.
03:01273 out of the 330 odd contracts were in PNM constituencies.
03:10That is not a small number.
03:11Then we have to ask ourselves, if they have so much love for black people and Indian people, who are the majority shareholders of this country,
03:27why then not have a program with CPEP that could possibly make these people graduate from just cutting grass and painting stone
03:36into something more meaningful for their lives?
03:39Senator Nakhid said CPEP should give those employed in the program something more sustainable for generating wealth.
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