P.E.P. gets reprieve

Press, 25 July 1986, Page 3

P.E.P. gets reprieve

Project Employment Programme workers in Christchurch have had a reprieve. The Minister of Labour, Mr Burke, announced last year that P.E.P. schemes would be phased out over a period ending on January 3h' next. Allocations were given to each district, but the Christchurch district of the Labour Department found that it had too few allocated to fill the vacancies offered by community organisations using the scheme. It therefore applied for 75 more positions and these have been granted. Community organisations have only until the end of this month to apply for subsidies for schemes using P.E.P. labour. They will be replaced from January 31 by new train-ing-oriented programmes.

At the end of last month there were 265 people on P.E.P. projects in Christchurch, and of these 70 were employed by community. organisations. The rest were employed by local bodies and educational authorities.

Many of the extra P.E.P. positions will be for new projects at Nga Hau E Wha marae in Pages Road, where labour is needed for car-park preparation, the painting of buildings, and the weaving of flax floor mats and feather cloaks.