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Former minister of Rural Development and Local Government Faris Al-Rawi, is pushing back against claims by the Government that the Community-Based Environmental Protection and Enhancement Programme (CEPEP) was being used to finance criminal activity.
Al-Rawi dismissed suggestions that CEPEP and the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP) functioned as criminal empires under the People’s National Movement (PNM), as implied by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar. He noted that during the People’s Partnership administration from 2010 to 2015, CEPEP operated with even larger budgets, citing a $726 million allocation between 2014 and 2015, compared to $358 million under the PNM. However, he did not clarify the timeframe for the PNM figure.
On the issue of criminal links, Al-Rawi said that during his time as line minister, he received just one report from the TTPS about CEPEP, tied to the beneficial ownership laws introduced by the PNM to identify the true owners of companies.
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