Click to view full size

For­mer Youth De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Fos­ter Cum­mings has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of reck­less­ly dis­man­tling crit­i­cal youth ini­tia­tives, from mil­i­tary-led train­ing pro­grammes to agri­cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment schemes, leav­ing vul­ner­a­ble young peo­ple with­out op­por­tu­ni­ties and staff with­out jobs.

Cum­mings said that months af­ter the April 28 gen­er­al elec­tion, the Gov­ern­ment has failed to restart or give clear di­rec­tion on pro­grammes such as the Civil­ian Con­ser­va­tion Corps (CCC), the Mil­i­tary-Led Aca­d­e­m­ic Train­ing Pro­gramme (Mi­LAT), and the Mil­i­tary Led Youth Pro­gramme of Ap­pren­tice­ship and Re­ori­en­ta­tion Train­ing (MY­PART), de­spite par­tic­i­pants al­ready be­ing in­ter­viewed and se­lect­ed.

He re­ject­ed claims that the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion in­tend­ed to shut them down.