Sahadeo: Housing lots for ex-Caroni workers next year

FORMER Caroni  (1975) Limited’s employees from Felicity wanted to know exactly how their community was going to benefit as a result of the Restructuring Programme of the sugar industry. Government took the bold step in 2003 to place the industry in another direction and as a consequence to offer 9,000 workers a VSEP Package, with a promise to retrain and retool them for other job opportunities, “We want to know when we getting lands to build houses and for agricultural purposes,” the villagers asked Christine Sahadeo, Minister in the Ministry of Finance, whose responsibility it is to arrange for the retraining programme so that the former employees would be better prepared for the challenging job market of the 21st century. Minister Sahadeo admitted that only about 2,500 of the former employees had applied for retraining and she was not satisfied with that number as she was of the view that more sugar workers  should have come forward to further equip themselves to become entrepreneurs if possible, and to prepare for job opportunites in the labour market.

She also told them that lands for houses and agricultural purposes would be distributed by early 2005 and even pointed out that 17 areas were designated for the development of agricultural estates — Caroni, Orange Grove, Jerningham, Todd’s Road, Edinburgh, Felicity, Waterloo, Exchange, Montserrat, Esperanza, Reform, (Williamsville), Cedar Hill, Petit Morne, La Fortune 1 and 2, La Gloria, Forres Park and Mora Valley. She also explained it was taking some time to lay down infrastructural facilities to distribute housing lots, but assured the gathering “that it will come early in 2005.” Minister Sahadeo said the agricultural estates would be done in two phases with Phase 1 involving four estates and covering 900 acres to be set up at Waterloo, Reform, Exchange and Caroni. She stressed that Caroni “would issue letters to confirm your eligibility for the agricultural lands and ask you to reconfirm the type of agricultural activity you wish to undertake and your preference as to location.”

Minister Sahadeo appealed to sugar workers to sign up for “training in technical areas such as — welding; building construction technology; engine management; air conditioning and refrigeration;  auto electrical; pipefitting and fabricating; food preservation, information technology and geriatric nursing.” The minister said residential estates would be developed on 20 sites throughout the country in such areas as Felicity, Orange Field, Cedar Hill, La Fortune, Picton, Woodland, Hermitage, Calcutta, Edinburgh, Esperanza, Exchange and Couva, with the distribution starting in the next six months with an allocation of 6,000 plus residential lots and this would provide employment during the construction period.

She spoke about the job placement programme and said more than 40 persons had gained employment through the programme and some 120  more jobs would be provided soon. The Minister said some 1,200 daily paid workers have already been re-absorbed into the sugar industry through the SMCL (Sugar Manufacturers Company Limited), with 400 being absorbed by contractors in the actual harvesting of the 2004 sugar cane crop, and “out of the 800 former monthly paid employees looking for employment, approximately 90 percent have gained employment.”