Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has said that the National Employment Programme (NEP) which was launched in 2013 is still going strong.
He made that statement while addressing a group of young people from the Roseau area on Monday. During the meeting, he outlined various educational and employment opportunities available which are provided by the Dominica Labour Party (DLP) administration in an effort to tempt their interests to pursue some of those opportunities.
Skerrit explained the meeting stemmed from a discussion he had with a group of young men following his visit to the West Bridge Project last week.
“The NEP is a programme which started in 2013. There are many people who said it was a political gimmick, it was geared towards elections and once elections come we would abandon the programme, but we are in 2017. It was launched in 2013 and it is still going strong and it is fully financed, and everybody who works gets paid at the end of the fortnight or at the end of the month,” he said.
He explained what the programme is all about.
“This programme is an opportunity for many of our young people to gain much-needed experience and to demonstrate to prospective employers, that 1, we have the ability to work and 2, we have the diligence and we are responsible, and we, in fact, can work if we are given the opportunity,” he noted.
Skerrit went on to say that it is his government’s responsibility to create the opportunities for young people, “and this government has done so in a number of areas.”
“We have focused heavily on education, housing, infrastructure, training of the youth in various fields,” he noted. “My responsibility and that of the government is to 1, create the opportunity and secondly give you an opportunity to take advantage of that opportunity,” he said. “Which means, it is our responsibility to get to create the NEP which we have done and secondly to allow you to participate in the NEP programme.”
Skerrit also gave a commitment that everyone who sign up to the NEP would be engaged as early as this week.
“I can promise you here, all of you who are here this morning who are interested in joining the NEP, who fills a form, will be engaged,” he promised.
He said they will be engaged as long as they wish, once they are serious.
“You cannot not come to work, you will have a supervisor, you will be assigned to an employer, a business place, you have to respect time. Work is 8:00 am not 8:15 am,” he stated. “How long you work under the NEP depends exclusively and entirely on yourself, because this programme is not a programme that is geared towards just giving people money by staying and watch Maury Povich or whoever else…it’s up to you my friends. If work is from Monday to Friday, you cannot skip Monday and skip Friday and show up on the last day of the fortnight and say, I want my pay and expect to get paid for the whole fortnight.”
Skerrit advice to young people is to choose the right path in life.
“There are times there will be temptation to do the wrong things but we have to keep on the right track, and I would like to help you, but I cannot force anything onto yourself. You have to be willing to work on addressing the issues,” he said.
“What you are assigned to, you must do it diligently,” he added.
Well I have applied to the national employment program twice and I am still awaiting a response . every where I go hatiatians and people who don’t want work I seeing in business places and as for me its been a real struggle to get employment that’s why Dominica is suffering from Brain drain…. If NEP can help I am in need of a job.
Looks like compulsory attendance to me. They had to be there otherwise they would not get paid their days wages.
DOMINICA IS LIKE JIM JONES “JONESTOWN” IN GUYANA…
everybody eager to drink skerrit poison.
I am not drinking that .
I know better
AFTER I MAKE U A BEGGER AND MAKE U POOR>>>> i will pretend to rescue u !
Dominicans are just like the Israelites in the Bible. No matter what good GOD is doing in the land, they will still oppose that is why ERIKA was sent to wake us up but we still remain negative and ungrateful. GOD will send something else to get rid of the negative ones because the country need to move forward. TOO many opposition killing our progress. Lennox is a disease.
Dominicans are easily fooled by Skerrit, as they posed themselves as hungry people, not just poor. Because when you have been accepted to join the NEP..do you think that makes you an independent person? you still cannot go to the Bank for a loan, you cannot take anything on Hire Purchase you will be denied because you are not a full time worker. This is just nonsense. Dominicans need to stop acting so foolish.
Lack of understanding is ignorance. This is why I would strongly suggest to those who oppose the (NEP) that they should seek education about the programme before casting boubts and innuendos. It is time that we act with a sense of civility. Open your minds, stop playing politics with everything and try to embrace what is good. This is an excellent initiative that has helped many and I have confidence that many more will benefit from it. Let us all embrace it. In fact, if you don’t understand how it works ask the beneficiaries. Great job!!
Where do I start with this? This defies economic sense to me when a head of state revels in the fact that a social program which he created is growing and going strong. The genesis of social programs such as the NEP came about as a result of high unemployment amongst the people.
I said the people in my previous statement because both youth and adults are being employed by this program. I have no doubt that this program started off as a good intention however considering that there seems to be no structure and policies to guide this program, it has now ballooned into a mish mash solution to fighting the chronic levels of unemployment.
This NEP program should have been an apprentice program which gave people from the age of 18-25 an opportunity to work for a period of time gaining valuable life and professional skills, getting them ready for the working world. Instead it is run with the intention of reducing the unemployment figures in all the wrong and despicable ways which defy…
‘These are clearly faces of desperation, and the Punjab PhD still has the unmitigated gull to tell these young people
i am your lord and savior. Why did he not publish for the record the factual figures of the number of persons employed under the NEP. You never offer specifics which is your style of keeping the ignorant more foolish; tell us by how much more do you expect to increase public service when you refuse to give those who are there a reasonable increase of salary.
NEP is a God-send for many. I don’t know if it’s the greatest idea but in these times it is a good one.
Hungry people……
Tell them to take a loan on the NEP let’s see which bank going to give
Is not NEP is really LEP Labour Employment Programme
The facial expressions on these people spell of skepticism and incredulity. The one in blue even looks like she is feeling ashamed to be there.
I bet they’re feeling like a bunch of misfits being given a second chance at life.
A real sad day for all Dominicans. When IMF was here in 2007 they instructed the Government of Skerrit to reduce its wage bill because there is evidence of an economic collapse. The Government in turn responded by sending employees to the Public Works Garage and also reduce its staffing at the Botanical Gardens. In 2014 Government could not afford a salary increase but because of opposition pressure they were forced to do so. With a decline in exports such as bananas and other agricultural products and with the closure of a BIG exporter (DCP) and can’t see the rational of the NEP. Today our major revenue earner has moved from bananas and other exports to the selling of passports. Rather than using the passport money to build factories like Juice and Canning factories,provide incentives to our farmers by improving our feeder roads, what about a Goat cheese factory( as suggested by UWP, reduction in our importation bill and engage farmers into production of chicken & pigs this Gov,nt
Con’t. This Government has embarked on unsustainable development. Here they bit their chest and boast.
Are we for real? Bob Marley once said, ” If I was educated I would have been a fool.” I wonder if this cannot be applied to this present administration? Yet we have those educated like thevalley Economist, CDCC teacher, the Bellots seem not to understand that Dominica is heading in the wrong direction and its time to change its coarse. When are we going to put politics and party aside and at the big picture probably not for our selves but for the children who will be left behind to fix it. This is very worrying to me. Many thinks that they with the millions can live comfortable in D/ca but as is said ” A hungry man is an angry man,” No pit bull will stop them from entering. Skerrit i personally believe that you need to stop the politics. I will end by saying God said one must give with a cheerful heart, not grudgingly but from the heart. God is looking at your giving because he…
surely all the people in the room are not there with their mind close they have to understand what a real job is
Why the negativity? There are endlesa Dominicans who have been employed under the National Employment Program who would have otherwise still be sitting at home unemployed. The country does not have enough jobs. NEP has allowed persons who are qualified and deseve to work the opportunity to work. Stop being so petty. None of you are doing anything to create jobs
Mr is the NEP supported by Venezuela nuh or CBI?
Oh yes Skerro the NEP is doing quite well and if what we are going through is any indication of what the future holds for us, you have set a formidable trap indeed to hold the naive yet desperate ones.
My “one-eye” cousin is part of your programme. He gets EC$600.00 for one month of cutting grass on the roadside. I have to send him US$200.00 monthly to help him make ends meet and send his two kids to school.
Is that what you are proud of dictator?
Is that the best that you can do for the people who once loved you?
Shame!
So all of a sudden since the CBS news cast our PM can stay home. Now we seeing all site visits, all discussions with youth all project visits, all making funds available. Well well, something good came out of the program. Man Dominicans have to be naive and ignorant, even your supporters not to see right through you. From where I sit by your action it seems you were doing something wrong with the CPI, I have no choice but to believe that.
The CBS thing s*cked. No good came out of it.
Allu too negative when it comes to allu country… bunch of hataz allu be. magway sah.
If you see it as negative,well so be it..I feel that it is a huge political gimmick by a sick political party,the DLP….This is largely a vote catching scheme to keep a corrupt DLP in office,while non supporters are languishing in poverty…After honourable Lintons appearance on CBS,,,,NEP is intensfying because this DLP,has no clue how to create sustainable jobs…ITS A POLITICAL MESS,by a corrupt regime.
If we had a dollar for every lie Skerrit told, we wouldn’t need to sell our citizenship.
Government not employing; Astaphan not employing, witchurch not employing, Brisbane not employing, Savealot not employing, Skerrit kill bananas, hoteliers not employing,, hospital not employing, NOBODY EMPLOYING so to continue to blind fold Dominicans THE DOCTOR OF CORRUPTION AND DECEPTION MUST take passport money to deceive young people with his NEP.
There some of the passport money going. to pay workers of the NEP program. Clearly that is a sign of the economy, when government has to take loans and sell passports to pay the unemployed to work. our economy is stifling but millions maybe billions passes through Dominica monthly. Only some benefit. they say they selling passports to finance projects which will in turn create employment. how long will it take before any of these projects open their doors to the public or even hire their first staff? Those who sold passports like the lawyer who have the project in portsmouth, this is only a way for people like him to get richer and pay dominicans pennies for their service in his hotel after he has sold dominica’s sovereignty to build his empire. On the surface it is a good program in that it allows young adults experience and exposure. But our economy CANNOT sustain this program. where is the money coming from to pay them? soon businesses wont even need to employ anyone formally.
Those who studies political science will be aware that NEP is not a new idea,as promulgated by our current government. It was formulated under the exact same acronym and introduced to the budding soviet union in March of 1921 by venerated communist party leader Lenin of Russia where it stood for “New Economic System” and was designed to appease the peasantry by assisting the supply of food to a rebellious and hungry proletariat. It lasted for seven years, by which time Stalin had completed his iron, dictatorial grip and consolidated absolute power on the Soviet Union, after the premature death of comrade Lenin. I understand that in our case some irreverent wags have termed the NEP programme “Never Ending Poverty”. History has an eerie way of repeating itself.
The youths’ faces look hopeless. Sad
You are so right, I never see that coming good obsaviation
Look at the faces of the people in the audience and also look at the faces of those at the table with this inept Skerrit. The pictures talks for itself, they only there talking is the one with open hands, open hands of questionable deeds. We just wanna know what happening with all this passport sales and bogus people out there posing as Dominicans.
Skerrit Labour government is corrupt, Hon Linton and UWP have them on the run, so now money to spend.
Go for it UWP and patrons, they soon fall. What a pappyshow labour government
The PM alone that smiling man?!
The only firm that employing in Dominica is the NEP which is Skerrit’s private business and does not require any accounting. Sadly enough no one knows the source of the NEP money, and surely, no one can go to the bank for a loan for a toilet, on the basis of their employment. No wonder Skerrit has to talk about building toilet all over because he knows very well what he has done to Dominica
Sorrowful faces because they are seeing this has nothing to do in making their lives better but to be dependent on a program that will continue to have them begging.