All about ‘Vision 1920’
THE EDITOR: I recently heard Minister Dumas boasting at a URP function that the ‘P’ in URP stood for productive. I invite Minister Dumas (be careful how you arrange the syllables) to pay random and unexpected visits to any of these projects and report to the public on the productivity that he notices. Now to CEPEP. Whilst I enjoy the clean highways and roadsides resulting from their labour, I do not support the philosophy of creation of jobs for unskilled persons. When I worked in St Lucia in 1990, I noticed one man driving a special tractor clean a mile of roadside in half-a-day. The aesthetic effect was the same. I agree that we should use unskilled persons where there is a requirement for unskilled labour, but to create such a market is clearly unproductive and tantamount to consigning these to the garbage heap of society. There are many of them who are intellectually capable of improving their lot in life and we should give them the opportunity to do so. The social effect of CEPEP is to bury the underclass deeper into dependence upon the state and have their descendants follow suit. A better long term approach would be to use automation to achieve the same results and to send these people to schools and pay them while they acquire relevant skills that will integrate them into the workplace and reduce this dependence upon the state. They may even become entrepreneurs and open their own businesses. Imagine in the midst of work-hour traffic there are workers with dangerous practice because these wackers operate at speeds as high 10,000 rpm and can send small particles flying around with tremendous force. This focus of ensuring votes for the next election is resulting in gross community under-development. Until you make dramatic changes to your philosophy, I suggest that you rename your ministry to suit and change that misnomer to "Vision 1920." R L BARTOLO Cumana
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"All about ‘Vision 1920’"