No criminals in URP: Minister

NiLeung Hypolite, Parliamentary Secretary in Works and Transport, with responsibility for the unemployment relief program (URP), said Monday there is no criminal activities in the URP, adding that there are no killings related to the program either.

The matter of criminal involvement in the program was raised last week by a high court judge who had to free two accused murderers after the State's case collapsed because two witnesses had been killed and one was in hiding and refused to testify.

Justice Anthony Carmona commented that "in the bowels of the URP there was rank criminality", and that anone who said otherwise was being "delusional and totally irresponsible".

Read related story: Witnesses refuse to testify, two murder accused walk free

The minister did not challenge the judge's statement but told the Trinidad Express, "I would like someone to provide evidence to prove there is a link between the URP programme and the criminal activity taking place in Trinidad and Tobago today."

He said there is a public perception that the fight for URP work creates gang-related violence but he said that is not so because there are no contractors involved in the program.

"There was no contract work being offered in the URP. In fact, the last Special Works contract under the URP was done over two years ago," he said.

Hypolite used murder figures for 2007 to advance his argument. He said only about 40 people killed last year were URP workers and none of them had been identified as a gang leader.

He said the killings had nothing to do with the program and pointed that crime and a person's workplace are not related. While insisting that people involved in criminal activity might also be working in the URP, which is the largest social programme in the country, he said it does not mean that the program is linked to crime.

He said it is "madness" for anyone to suggest that the program should be suspended or shut down. "When you shut it down and you have 20,000 persons outside there looking for a dollar, what do you think is going to happen?" he asked.

It's the same question sugar workers asked when the Manning government shut down Caroni (1975) Limited, sending 10,000 sugar workers and their dependants and another 6,000 cane farmers looking "for a dollar".

Opposition leader Basdeo Panday, whose constituency was affected by the Caroni shutdown, agrees with the Justice Carmona. But he said the solution to the problem is to reform the URP, not shut it down.

He said it must return to the original intention that his government had for the program, which he said was to begin training people in skills so that they could graduate out of it and get work in the private sector or as tradespeople working independently.

He said the way the current administration is running the URP is clearly a case of a government financi9ng crime. The former prime minister said the Manning government corrupted the program by turning it into a party organization to give work to their friends.

he said if the government had followed his administration plan to use the URP as a training centre there would be no shortage of labour in the construction industry and there would have been no need for the importation of labour.

The Chamber of Industry and Commerce has also added its voice to the debate, calling on the minister of national security and police commissioner to take heed of the judge's observations and investigate and address criminality in the URP "once and for all".