URP,CEPEP workers want budget goodies
Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira will present the much anticipated national budget to Parliament this afternoon. Everybody wants a piece of the pie.
Unemployed Relief Programme (URP), Community Enhancement and Protection of the Environment (CEPEP) and National Reforestation workers are calling on Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira to give them a better deal the 2010 budget today.
According to the workers there were many situations where “financial accommodations” were made to daily paid workers who are represented by the National Union of Government and Federated Workers (NUFGW).
“Some people might argue that they have not seen the benefits served by CEPEP,URP and the National Reforestation who earn a meagre salary of only $86.25 a day.
“However, they continue to work from 7am to 12 noon while their counterparts who are represented by a trade union NUFGW are receiving handsome payments for the performance of an hour or an hour and a half day daily,” a CEPEP worker said.
“All of us have to pay the same grocery bill, likewise our counterparts of NUFGW in the Ministry of Health, WASA and other Government institutions.”
He added that recent comments made by prominent attorney Dana Seetahal requesting the government remove the URP and CEPEP from as a social programme grant amounted to gross disrespect.
“Seetahal who is also an Independent Senator earning a high salary and getting a lot of Government “briefs to prosecute persons earning millions of dollars, is against the social programmes of the PNM.
“Nonetheless, we are looking forward to a happy gift of an increased salary for all the hard working social workers who have been doing conscientious work to the people and Government of Trinidad and Tobago.”
Other interest groups are seeking goodies in the budget-the business community in terms of stimulus packages and lower taxes; pensioners want increases, the trade union movement want job creation and protection measures and one banker has even called for greater spending by the Government.
The Finance Minister has already announced that the the budget, which is officially called the Appropriation Bill, will be a deficit budget with the focus on the infrastructure and job creation measures to stimulate the economy which is headed for the third quarter of decline.