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Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

A prison of­fi­cer de­tained un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency had been re­ceiv­ing CEPEP con­tracts from a com­pa­ny formed in his name. A Guardian Me­dia in­ves­ti­ga­tion can con­firm that for­mer Ras­ta City gang leader Cedric “Burkie” Burke and his fam­i­ly re­ceived at least $1 mil­lion from two com­pa­nies that were award­ed CEPEP con­tracts.

It comes af­ter 10,000-plus Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) work­ers were placed on the bread­line at the end of June when the con­tracts of 340 con­trac­tors were ter­mi­nat­ed. The dis­missals were a re­sult of an au­dit or­dered in­to CEPEP by line Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath, who is in charge of Pub­lic Util­i­ties.