Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath and for­mer min­is­ter un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion, Mar­vin Gon­za­les, are now en­gag­ing in a heat­ed war of words over the on­go­ing de­lays in promised pay­ments to Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) con­trac­tors and work­ers, amid wider ten­sions sur­round­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s re­struc­tur­ing of the pro­gramme.

Af­ter over 300 con­trac­tors CEPEP were ter­mi­nat­ed on June 27, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led Gov­ern­ment had promised that the 10,500 work­ers af­fect­ed by the move would re­ceive their salaries for Ju­ly. Those salaries were ini­tial­ly sup­posed to be paid out last week.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Padarath con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that Gov­ern­ment had not been able to ful­fil the promise be­cause CEPEP re­quired sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing. As such, he said ef­forts were now be­ing made to­wards pro­cess­ing the out­stand­ing pay­ments to the con­trac­tors by next week.