The Sanitation Service Authority (SSA) is using prisoners to help them improve efficiency, and may soon be bringing psychiatric patients into the fold as well.
Minister of the Environment Trevor Prescod said these groups were marginalised and should not be barred from making meaningful contributions to society.
Speaking during the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) national steering committee project site visits yesterday, Prescod said the SSA had been suffering with staff shortages recently due to retirement and sick leave.
He added that the SSA workers had been giving their all and making a national sacrifice, but the fact remained they needed staff. However, Prescod said they could not afford to hire new full- time staff so those selected from the prison and Psychiatric Hospital would be temporary workers on standby.
“Those people with challenges at the Psychiatric Hospital or who have been incarcerated, these are real people and should be made part of the labour force. If you push them away, then we will experience a lot of social tensions and conflicts emerging, so we have to find some way to include them back into the mainstream of society,” he said.
(CA)
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