Govt starts retraining courses for former Caroni workers

The Ministry of Agriculture, Lands and Marine Resources has launched a training programme for daily-paid workers of the former Caroni (1975) Ltd as part of its promise to restructure the sugar industry.

The ceremony took place yesterday at the Trinidad and Tobago Institute of Technology, Brechin Castle, Couva, with addresses delivered by John Rahael, Minister of Agriculture, Lands and Marine Resources; Senator Christine Sahadeo, Minister in the Ministry of Finance, and Dane Darbassie, chairman of the Employers’ Consultative Association. Minister Rahael told the gathering that 3,700 former daily-paid workers were under the age of 45, and “the government was on target in ensuring that a major component of Caroni’s Enhanced VSEP was the offer of training former daily paid workers.” He added that the total of the daily-paid workers — (7,870) would be offered the opportunity of training and retraining, and while all would not “avail themselves of the opportunity to do so, it is hoped that the majority will.”

Of those under 40 (37,00), the minister “encouraged them to attend the open days planned until February 2004, to complete the request for training forms.” Rahael said on the basis of the two open days previously held, 1,250 requests were received, and from those 124 were selected for the day’s launch. Minister Rahael explained that by the end of October all 1,250 applicants would be offered a place in a suitable training programme. He added that the training being offered would “give former daily- paid workers a real advantage in the work place.” The Trinidad and Tobago Regiment is assisting in upgrading training centres, located mainly in the workshops of the former Caroni (1975) Ltd.

Rahael said that by October 2004, some 4,500 former daily- paid workers would be trained. Senator Christine Sahadeo, Minister in the Minstry of Finance, said that she was pleased “that that the Government did in fact recognise that training and retraining would be a critical component of any attempt to restructure Caroni (1975) Ltd.” The sugar industry was no stranger to her as she was exposed to some aspects of it during her childhood days and “wondered how many sacrifices were made in the pursuit of earning a livelihood in cane and sugar.” “Unfortunately, my work in the Ministry of Finance, puts me in touch with the reality that sugar, and the business of sugar as it was structured, was not too sweet,” Senator Sahadeo said. She added, “as preferential markets are set to disappear and the industry wrangled with low yields and high production costs, Trinidad and Tobago lagged behind its regional and international counterparts in the business of sugar.” She was convinced that it was against this background that the government was compelled to put the industry into a mode of transition and give it its best opportunity for long-term survival. Dane Darbasie, chairman of the ECA, said that his association is supportive of the intiative in training as an integral part of the restructuring exercise.”