Panday to leave UNC for CEPEP?

THE hearts of United National Congress (UNC) supporters almost stopped beating on Monday night when party leader Basdeo Panday threatened to quit politics and champion the rights of workers in the CEPEP programme, which has been a regular target for Opposition bashing.

Addressing party faithfuls at the Don Miguel Road Hindu Primary School, Panday wondered why CEPEP chose to expose themselves to unprecedented levels of  “exploitation and humiliation”, only “collecting crumbs” while their employers collected “hundreds of thousands of dollars” every month. The UNC leader rattled off a list of names of persons who headed CEPEP companies and claimed many were top People’s National Movement (PNM) activists. However party supporters were stunned when Panday declared: “Where are the unions? Man, all you make me feel to give up this Leader of the Opposition work and go back to my old trade union days. Go back to my union days and organise those CEPEP workers to get decent working conditions. My blood boils when I see the poor being exploited in this way. My old union blood begins to boil in me again.” The UNC leader wondered why OWTU President-General Errol McLeod and PSA President Jennifer Baptiste-Primus had nothing to say on this issue.