As thou­sands of Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) work­ers re­main in lim­bo over the fu­ture of their jobs, cur­rent and for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties min­is­ters Bar­ry Padarath and Mar­vin Gon­za­les con­tin­ue to trade blame over the award­ing of CEPEP con­tracts.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Padarath rub­bished claims made by Gon­za­les that there have been se­cret CEPEP hir­ings in Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ar­eas.

Ac­cord­ing to Padarath, CEPEP is cur­rent­ly un­der­go­ing an au­dit, and there has been no in­vi­ta­tion to reg­is­ter or hire any con­trac­tors across the coun­try.