Ministers: URP and CEPEP not to blame for labour shortage

They were speaking at a post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall yesterday. Montano said the shortage of labour was created not because Government’s social programmes were competing with private and other public sector jobs, but because the development in the economy had outstripped the country’s capacity to produce skilled personnel to service its accelerated development.

Montano added that the persons who were being trained in programmes like Must, OJT, and Hype could not fill the gap (in the training capability of the country) that had been created during the previous six to eight years.

He added that many of these programmes did not qualify persons to enter the labour market as skilled artisans and there was still a shortage of experienced craftspeople.

Defending URP and CEPEP, Enill said these social support programmes provided people with an opportunity to change the way in which their children and families were socialised.

He said every single G8 country was putting aside money to give small states to deal with poverty. "What is wrong if a government understands that certain people don’t have the skills sets and are unable to enter into the business world, and sets-up a programme for those individuals who have absolutely no skills," he argued.

Suggesting that CEPEP served the useful purpose of cleansing the environment, Enill said CEPEP could not be considered a make-work programme. "It is certainly not Government’s view of the programme," he said, saying the programme sought to move people from one level to another.

He said many "of us" did not know how to make the transition because there was not a history of individuals who could teach us how (to move from unemployed to entrepreneur).