Basseterre, St. Kitts, June 24, 2020 (SKNIS): Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis, Dr. the Honourable Timothy Harris, said that the benefits to the regularisation of S.T.E.P. (Skills Training Empowerment Programme) workers are that they would now be able to get job letters for the purposes of acquiring visas and to take to lending institutions, while also being included for pensionable consideration.
Dr. Harris announced this during the Leadership Matters virtual forum series on June 23.
The Prime Minister said, “Regularisation means that they will now become part of the permanent working staff or employee class of the Government.”
He highlighted that “this means then that when you go to the bank with a letter, saying that you are working on S.T.E.P, there is no need for the financial institution to say S.T.E.P. is not really a job or S.T.E.P. is for a finite time and we cannot rely upon that you have no status.”
“We are now giving you status, we now would be able to produce your job letters for you to take or to send off to the US embassy as evidence that you are at work.”
He also said that he and his team are in discussion with the National Insurance Company, which covers all government employees to ensure that those benefits in due time be made available to the S.T.E.P. workers.
Dr. Harris further reiterated that “there are significant benefits, perhaps the most important one is the security now that you have as an employee of the Government and for all the other rights and privileges of Government employees to be extended to you including consideration of pensionable benefits and as I said now, you can get job letters to take to lending institutions and also you can use them for purposes of visa.”
“We will have to insist that those who are on the S.T.E.P. programme are really performing, that you have to give a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay; we certainly will hold the supervisors accountable,” he said.
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