‘Fair work for fair pay’

Government employees have been called on to “give a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay.” The call was made by Senator  Rennie Dumas, Minister of Local Government, at the Chaguanas Borough Corporation earlier this week. He said  “too many work for one hour and want to collect pay for eight hours. What we want is more productivity.” The Minister was replying to Councillor for Enterprise South,  Patricia Baptiste, who had raised the question of more employment for the people of Central Trinidad, and this prompted Dumas to stress, “What we want is more productivity from those who are employed rather than asking for more work for people who just want to collect pay for work that they have not done.”

He stressed that Government needed an “enlightened work force if we are to make the progress that we are capable of making.” Minister Dumas was visiting the Chaguanas Borough for the first time since he was  entrusted with the Ministry of Local Government. After meeting the Mayor and Councillors at the Borough’s Chamber, the Minister took the opportunity to walk through the main street of the district  to get a first hand view of roadside vending, which was out of control over the festive season. Earlier in the day Minister Dumas had made a similar visit to San Fernando, and said that “what I have seen in the South was almost the same as what I am seeing here in Chaguanas.” “What is necessary,” he said, “is to encourage entrepreneurship but at the same time it must be done in an orderly fashion.”  Mayor Suruj Rambachan told the Minister that the Borough was able to solve illegal street vending up to a point by allowing the use of a Car Park for a rental of $1,000 each and the Borough  collected  $79,000 from vendors who paid to carry on business for the Christmas season. The Mayor described it as a credit to Chaguanas.