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The Gov­ern­ment is re­ceiv­ing sharp crit­i­cism from Pa­tri­ot­ic Front (PF) leader Mick­ela Pan­day and for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) MP Rush­ton Paray over the de­ci­sion to ter­mi­nate work­ers at the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) and the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP).

In a What­sApp re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Pan­day wel­comed Gov­ern­ment’s ef­fort to ad­dress cor­rup­tion, waste, and mis­man­age­ment at the state-run pro­grammes. How­ev­er, she con­demned the han­dling of the process as “ad hoc,” ar­gu­ing that the abrupt mass lay­offs at CEPEP, URP, and the Re­for­esta­tion Pro­gramme left thou­sands of low-in­come work­ers, many of them sin­gle moth­ers, with­out prop­er tran­si­tion plans or as­sur­ances of re-em­ploy­ment.

“We be­lieve cor­rup­tion must be ad­dressed, but not at the ex­pense of in­no­cent fam­i­lies now strug­gling to pay rent, buy food, send their chil­dren to school, and ac­cess ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties,” she said.