Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: At this point in time, we've got an interview for you. Joining us on the show, senior operations officer at cpep. Let's welcome to our program to tell us about some of the things and how they work. Shevan and Balkaran, good morning to you. Welcome to our program.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: Good morning. Are you hearing me clearly?
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Yes, we're hearing you loud and clear. Nice to have you with us here this morning, cpap.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: Thank you for the opportunity.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: It's nice to have you on the program because when we usually think of cpap, we think of manicuring the grass and cutting on the side of the road and all those kinds of things that we see all over the place. But very often CPEP is involved in some cleanup activities that are not associated with their regular duties.
And we see them more often than not whenever we have floods and all of these other kinds of developments. CPEP crews are out in their numbers rendering assistance and doing all these things. How come, how is that possible?
[00:01:13] Speaker A: We are not the first responders in terms of emergency. However, we do respond in tandem with the advice of the agencies such as the DMUs and the Office of Devastator Preparedness when it is safe to do so, to provide alleviation through the directive of either our line ministry or requests that come into the CPAP Co. Ltd.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Okay, that's interesting. I mean, the service provider goes a long way. When you have some of these natural disasters and other things, you need all the help you could get. Unless you've been in a situation where your house has been flooded out. And I say this to people, unless you've been in that situation, you don't understand how traumatic that is. You sometimes you're looking at a thing and you don't know where to start.
How do you, how do you begin to start to clean or recover? And getting that assistance, it's valuable.
But, but. So we know that CPAP usually works a certain period of time and everything else when they come out to do this extra duty, who pays them, how, how are they?
[00:02:15] Speaker A: So what we would do, we just structured their work in the upcoming days to give the necessary time off or the to just cover the period they would have worked for. So it's not an increased cost to either the company or the government by extension.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: Okay, tell us about some of the operations that that CPIP has been involved in when it comes to cleanup and so on.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Well, I could speak on recently where we would have had work Done in Sad Road, Marvel La Sa Road, all the connecting streets down Nunner Hill and Indigo Martin we would have had to clean up major flooding over the last couple of days.
We deployed approximately 120 workers throughout the areas just to assist with cleaning up and recovery, to get them back to where they were before.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: Have requests for such kind of assistance been increasing in recent times? Is it normal?
[00:03:14] Speaker A: What's, what's going on in tandem with online ministry, who has, who is now taking a more digital approach. You see an increase in the requests coming in and they have a lot of different platforms that they would accept requests from. So you get an. We are getting an increase in the requests to facilitate studies, emergencies and who.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: Can make that request. Where does that request come from? What's the, what's the chain of command or how does it work?
[00:03:46] Speaker A: So they would go to the Ministry of Rural Development and they have an app or they have WhatsApp channels and they may request or if it's need for a little more quicker intervention, they Can Message Co. Ltd. Where our marketing and communications department is very active in responding to anyone that communicates with the page.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: You know, as I said, you know, you see the images and there are videos and all these other things of the CPEP crew coming out and rendering the assistance at a time when it's most, most needed. There's a. I don't want to say there's a love hate relationship with CPEP when it comes to the public, but there are some of us who have our preconceived notions as to what CPEP is all about and everything else. And let me allow you the opportunity to tell us about CPAP and some of the roles and functions that CPEP plays in society. And without cpap, where would we be? Tell us about some of the things that CPEP is involved in.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: CPAP is basically, without sugarcoating it, the foundation that most of our society, the most vulnerable in our society stands on. We do have the most vulnerable workforce through our contractor and our contractor workers. These are people that wouldn't traditionally be able to get to fall into more structured jobs. And with all the intervention of the CPAP program and the direction that we have it in right now, you would see a lot more chaos here.
Our workforce comprised of approximately 50 females.
And you would see that these are people that are single mothers taking care of children within the hours where somebody could see them to drop them to school and pick them back up. And it's our target force is really the most vulnerable in society.
And you See it every time you visit a team or we have. The assistance is people who probably would have been flooded out and they come in to help and then the team will go back with them to help them out.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I remember looking at some. Some footage captured at various sites across the country where there are floods. And when you look into people's homes and you see the devastation that takes place, trying to get over that would be an insurmountable challenge for many people.
And having this assistance, even though, you know, people say all kind of thing about cpap, but at the end of the day when, when CPAP is called out to assist, it does.
And as I said, that kind of assistance is valuable. I remember when CPEP was first brought about by Patrick Manning under his administration.
It was vilified by politicians for whatever reason. And they said then people painting stone on the side of the road and all these other things. And the very same people who criticized the CPEP program expanded it when they got into office, in spite of all the criticisms that they leveled against CPAP on those lines. And I'm not going to take you down a political road because that's not why you're here, but the politics.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: The thing about that is the people oftentimes who thankfully right now are in charge with the management of the company because they do have successful management right now, they get to see CPAP in lines, in colors that we don't get to see them. We see CPAP as six regions that we divided for proper management that is intrinsically aligned to their communities, to uplift communities, and to develop in ways that is reaching the most vulnerable. We have structures and things in place to sponsor community events. We have a rigid coastal cleanup program that we do every year without fail. We provide boosteries for employees. Well, it will be our employees, but it will be the contractors employees for this. Children who go to school, they can't meet the necessary funding. And once they prove that they have the necessary academic qualifications, we 300 special projects every month would include churches, mosques, community centers. We don't get to see the country. Not that we don't get. We don't want to see the country in a political divide. We see the country as where we need to do work. That's all we see, work.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean the efforts of cpap. You see it, you can't miss it. You understand? You see the CPEP contractors, you see the workers out in the field and all those kinds of things.
What are the future objectives? If you can give us an insight. Expanding the Program taking on other roles and functions. What's.
What are some of the things in train?
[00:08:47] Speaker A: Well, right now what we want to do from the head office standpoint is digitize most of our processes so that the request of information can, you know, be easier for anyone throughout the world.
Moving forward, we would like to. We have the marketing communication department that continuously looks towards improving and expanding the program in terms of training for contractors in the necessary services and necessary different areas for them to develop as well as the services that the workers do provide. So we do have a lot of services that we take on privately. Like I'm sure you would know, we clean up a carnival and not to toot our own horn, but the city look, the remnants of carnival isn't there after we were done in the morning.
And it's incredible to see such a, you know, collusion of resources by our departments and the contractor, which. And the synergy that takes place to make that cleanup. You know what it is, because something we look forward to at this point, and it's nothing that we're very prepared for it, if it's one thing.
And that's one of the things that the Silver Company limited Has adopted in the last few months. We're very prepared for a lot of things and lots of situations where we asked to do and asked arise and, you know, expand what we're doing.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: I remember the initial, initial days of cpap. It was sold to the nation as a way of empowering people.
The objective, I believe, and I'm subject to correction, is that you would take these people, you would employ them so that they. They'd be able to earn a living and they'd also be trained so that they wouldn't have to be in CPAP for their life and that the contractors would eventually move on and form their own businesses and all those kinds of things. Is. Is that what is taking place at this point in time or has that kind of lost its way over the years?
[00:10:50] Speaker A: No, that is. That is what is being taken place now to an even stronger extent because we are developing these people within the program to a way that they would have never seen before. We have structured training for the contractors, but now, as of the last few months, we managed to breach that training and go to the workers where we have 2400 of them enrolled in an adult literacy program, Alta, so we can start the process of getting them to be at a certified level of literacy. And we're going to expand to the rest of them as soon as this is done by cohorts and Even after that, we're engaged in situations with the IDB to, you know, expand their training and the training provided to the workers themselves. So at the end of the day, we have provided them with all the necessary tools to improve their lives.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Yeah. As you enter into video this morning, let's, let's get back to the assistance that's rendered by CPAP in times of need. Can individuals make that request or must that request come from authorized channels?
[00:12:01] Speaker A: It's a twofold. They can request it through our Facebook page and they can make the request through us. That is very clear. We are able to facilitate requests through us, but they are also able to use the channels of the ministry as well as the original corporations. But when it goes through the corporations, it will go to the ministry before it comes to us.
But they can utilize our Facebook page if you are completely limited, to make such requests. And once we have the resources available, we are here to help.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that's, that's valuable. It's valuable information. It's a valuable resource. Most times you really wouldn't appreciate it until it hits the fan and you need that kind of assistance. I want to thank you for being with us here this morning and giving an insight into some of these things and how they work and how people can utilize them for their own benefit. Thank you once again for being with us.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: Thank you. But before I go, I just want to thank the contractor workers, my staff, the original coordinators, the staff at CPA for continuously rising above and you know, making themselves present during these times to help and assist everyone.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. It was definitely my pleasure having you on the program. And as things unfold, we'll keep in touch. We probably may need to have further conversations moving forward. Thanks again for being with us this morning.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: No problem. I could also provide you not the contact number.
[00:13:24] Speaker B: Sure, go right ahead.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: 225-4400. They can contact the operations department and any assistance necessary. We will H. Yeah. Once we come.
[00:13:34] Speaker B: Thank you so much. That of course. Ladies and gentlemen, we dropped the caterings on our interview with senior operations officer at cpap. That's Sivanan Balcharan. Many times we see the images. We see CPEP out helping at all kinds of hours. We don't appreciate, we really don't appreciate how far that goes in treating with some of the challenges that confront us.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5.
