BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – IN another of its promises if successful at the upcoming General Elections, Team Unity would create some 3 000 jobs by making all those on the People Employment Programme (PEP) permanent employees.
This was revealed by Unity Team Leader and Prime Ministerial candidate the Hon. Dr. Timothy Harris in a recent exclusive interview with SKNVibes Business.
He declared that his party is campaigning to have all PEP workers permanently placed across all sectors of the Federation’s economy.
Dr. Harris explained that the private sector is the engine for growth in St. Kitts and Nevis.
“People are artificially being engaged by the public sector. These are not people on the permanent payroll of the private sector, which the IMF said must be the engine for economic growth. How you get the private sector to employ people is by growing the economy so businesses can be more successful…so people can then find work.
“When the economy grows the private sector will benefit from the growth…we will grow tourism,” he added.
The Prime Ministerial candidate said his party would place great emphasis on the agriculture sector which he expects to be one of the critical areas to job creation in the local economy.
“We are going to grow agriculture, we are going to reduce the cost of energy with our involvement in geothermal energy…so we are ready to go. That is why we say we would move the people out from PEP over time to more sustainable jobs. We would take some of them, for example, and set them up on farms…on five and ten acre farms.”
Dr. Harris however did not explain how his party plans to draw in more Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and investors to create jobs within the private sector to stimulate the local economy.
.jpg)