Panday says Gov't has no plan to deal with Job-loss

LEADER of the Opposition Basdeo Panday says, "Government must tell the country how many persons it expects will lose their jobs as the economic crisis deepens, what sectors those persons will come from and what the government is going to do to get them back into meaningful employment."

The statement comes in response to concerns by the Employers Consultative Association (ECA) that thousands of jobs will be lost with the fallout from the CL Financial debacle and as the economic crisis gets worse. About 100 employees of CLICO Investment Bank (CIB) were sent home last week. Steel giant Arcelor Mittal dismissed 120 workers last month. Last year BPTT revealed restructuring plans that would result in joblosses. Throughout the country, hundreds have been gradually sent home as small and medium businesses either downsized or closed.

According to the Couva North MP:
"The government has not yet shown that it has a grip on the economic situation. We are seeing, at most, occasional reactionary measures and no pro-active or anticipatory measures. The government has also been guessing about the true budgetary deficit, and they have been 'vooping' in the dark in its adjustments to the revenue figure.

"It is certain that thousands of persons will lose their jobs but by now, the government has had enough time to assess the situation and forecast who are the people that will lose their jobs and what sectors they will come from. If the government knows that then they would be able to develop a plan to ensure these people can put food on their tables and pay their mortgages."

The Central Bank has said that several measures are in place to counsel the displaced CIB workers, but Panday says this is not sufficient.

"Counseling and emotional support are important but the affected workers will find no comfort and peace of mind until they know how and where they will get a job to maintain their families, and by not addressing the issue of where they will get a job the government has abandoned the workers," Panday said, adding that the thousands who will soon lose their jobs too will suffer the same fate of abandonment by the government.

"The so-called assistance is really no help at all. Nobody needs to tell these workers to cut their spending and save their money. They know that. What they want to know is where their next wage is going to come from.

"Government's responsibility is to create an environment that facilitates and stimulates positive economic activity, and if some areas of the system are falling then government has to come up with a plan to stimulate other areas to counteract the fallout.

"Doing nothing cannot be an option. The country and the government cannot just sit down and say we have battened down for a bumpy ride and that we will deal with the issues when the crisis is over or when things get better.

A lot of lives will be devastated during this period. Society will deteriorate the deeper this crisis gets and the longer it protracts. That is why government must operate with a plan and it must show the country this plan so citizens can work in tandem with the plan."

Panday criticized government's approach in the past for dealing with retrenchment and retraining, saying:
"The government has tried to herd people into its social programmes. That is not a real plan and it is not a meaningful attempt at retraining. You end up with a mismatch between the skills and the needs.

"Caroni was a good example. Mechanics, pan boilers and cane cutters were expected to become overnight farmers but their skill and experience had nothing to do with cultivating crops, and while almost no-one has received any promised agricultural plots, the few who have gotten access to land are not able to cultivate the land in a proper, profitable way.

"Further, those programmes should not be careers – they should be temporary relief. But the government dumps people in these programmes and then forgets about them."

Article submitted by: Sunil Ramjitsingh Communications Specialist, Office of the Leader of the Opposition