JOSHUA SEEMU­N­GAL

Be­tween 2009 and 2023, more than $6.5 bil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed to the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP), pro­vid­ing thou­sands of low-in­come fam­i­lies with an al­ter­na­tive source of in­come.

How­ev­er, in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­veal that a lack of po­lit­i­cal over­sight al­lowed con­tract­ed com­pa­nies, many with lit­tle trans­paren­cy, to earn be­tween $20,000 and $50,000 per month in man­age­ment fees. Al­le­ga­tions of nepo­tism, favouritism, and kick­backs have per­sist­ed across suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments.