The PEP Initiative

(ZIZ News) — In continued efforts to restructure the People Employment Programme, (PEP) the management has begun what has been identified as the PEP Initiative.

According to Permanent Secretary Responsible for The People Employment Programme, Osbert DeSuza the initiative began in October of 2015.

He said, “We invited private sector persons who had benefitted—some of them for 3 years—from the services of the PEP, to a meeting at the PEP office and we tried to impress upon them that given the way it was going, it was not going to be sustainable but they can help the country, they can help the country, they can help the government, they can help some of these young persons by partnering with the government and take some of them off the programme.”

DeSuza said the initiative has been successful thus far.

“We have had quite a bit of success with that in that we have interviewed about 70/80/90 employees and I know for a fact and— I have the spreadsheet at my office—that we have been able to get the private sector to take in excess of 180 persons off the PEP Programme,” he said.

He thanked those businesses who co-operated with the government and gave the PEP workers the opportunity for full employment.