Pao­lo Ker­na­han

There are few things Tri­nis love more than a good rant. The Pe­tro­le­um Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion oblig­ed our in­sa­tiable ap­petite for bac­cha­nal with an an­nounce­ment that gas sta­tions across the coun­try will no longer process elec­tron­ic pay­ments. Crit­i­cisms ric­o­chet­ted across so­cial me­dia. Mem­bers of the pub­lic rushed to con­demn the move, sug­gest­ing sta­tion own­ers are pun­ish­ing cit­i­zens to set­tle a score with the Gov­ern­ment. Al­so thrown in for good mea­sure was opin­ion that some deal­ers are just greedy.

Cit­i­zens' re­ac­tions gal­loped away on ear­ly me­dia cov­er­age, which was lit­tle more than the an­nounce­ment from the pe­tro­le­um deal­ers of the im­pend­ing card to cash switch. Ini­tial sto­ries lacked the bal­last of analy­sis of the is­sues which brought the gas sta­tion own­ers to this far-reach­ing de­ci­sion. A truer pic­ture grad­u­al­ly be­gan to emerge with some fol­low-up sto­ries and in­ter­views. But by then, how many minds were made up? There are sev­er­al ques­tions which were per­haps missed in the pre­lim­i­nary ex­am­i­na­tion of the pe­tro­le­um deal­ers' cash�on­ly de­c­la­ra­tion.

Here's a good open­er: why would gas sta­tion own­ers put them­selves, their work­ers and cus­tomers at risk of crim­i­nal tar­get­ing, giv­en our es­tab­lished track record of gas sta­tion hold-ups? Ad­di­tion­al­ly, why would pe­tro­le­um deal­ers re­vert to a cash han­dling en­vi­ron­ment in which pil­fer­age would be far more dif­fi­cult to de­tect? Why would they pre­fer a sit­u­a­tion in which un­scrupu­lous work­ers could eas­i­ly slip cash in­to their pock­ets?

So that brings us log­i­cal­ly to the next ques­tion, are gas sta­tion own­ers be­ing un­rea­son­able in say­ing they can't sur­vive on the ex­ist­ing mar­gins? First off, their oblig­a­tion to pay in­creas­es in the Green Fund and Busi­ness Levy is as fixed as their prof­it mar­gins. From what I've read, af­ter their green fund and busi­ness levy de­duc­tions, deal­ers make $3.95 on every $100 dol­lars you spend at a gas sta­tion on su­per and pre­mi­um gaso­line. Out of that $3.95 they have to pay elec­tric­i­ty bills, work­ers' wages, charges on elec­tron­ic trans­ac­tions and sta­tion main­te­nance. They must al­so ac­count for their own needs and those of their fam­i­lies with the same $3.95. Where then is the fi­nan­cial wrig­gle room?

Some seem to favour yank­ing the li­cens­es of tru­cu­lent pe­tro­le­um deal­ers and hand­ing them over to those who could make a bet­ter go of it. Build big­ger, sell food, beer, es­tab­lish a mi­ni gro­cery why don't you?

We should ask our­selves, is the blinged out, mega­s­tore gas sta­tion busi­ness mod­el rep­re­sen­ta­tive of all gas sta­tions in T&T?

That mod­el of gas sta­tion is not broad­ly ap­plic­a­ble. It de­pends on land space but, more im­por­tant­ly, on the eco­nom­ic de­mo­graph­ics of the re­spec­tive com­mu­ni­ties. It is prob­a­bly un­like­ly that a farmer fill­ing up his pick-up truck in Man­ta­cool, Table­land will buy gas sta­tion sushi.

Ask your­self this, if the Gov­ern­ment were to im­me­di­ate­ly re­voke all gas sta­tion own­ers' li­cens­es and dan­gle them out there for pub­lic in­ter­est, how many busi­ness­men will take their in­vest­ment dol­lars and put them in­to com­mu­ni­ties like Ce­dros, Ica­cos, San­gre Grande, To­co and Moru­ga?

For­mer min­is­ter of en­er­gy Kevin Ram­nar­ine sug­gests we may soon see clo­sures of as many as 30 gas sta­tions across the coun­try. He points out there have al­ready been clo­sures in La Brea, Clax­ton Bay and Cu­mu­to to name a few.

The strug­gle gas sta­tions face is a re­al­i­ty with which I am all too fa­mil­iar. My work takes me to many of our far flung com­mu­ni­ties. In many in­stances I find my­self run­ning low on fu­el.

The gas sta­tions in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties I vis­it are, very of­ten, closed or out of gas. In Ce­dros my heart al­ways sinks when I pull in­to the sta­tion on­ly to see the pump noz­zles placed atop the pumps. That's rur­al code for "out of gas." This al­so hap­pens fre­quent­ly on trips to Grande Riv­iere where there is nev­er any guar­an­tee of get­ting diesel at the NP sta­tion in Cumana.

It is my opin­ion that pe­tro­le­um deal­ers' re­quest for in­creas­es on fu­el prof­it mar­gins is de­serv­ing of se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion. The pub­lic should note that this doesn't mean high­er gas prices, it sim­ply means a big­ger piece of the prof­it pie so gas sta­tion own­ers can do more than just tread wa­ter.

The cash-on­ly op­tion seems like a des­per­ate gam­bit de­signed to force the gov­ern­ment to take de­ci­sive ac­tion on is­sues left in abeyance since 2005, the year prof­it mar­gins were last ad­dressed by the state. Pon­der this for a mo­ment. A gas sta­tion own­er's prof­it mar­gins are con­trolled by the state, ir­re­spec­tive of in­creas­ing costs. Neigh­bour­ing Venezuela knows a thing or two about the ef­fects of price con­trols on pri­vate busi­ness­es.

The me­dia could have done a bet­ter job cov­er­ing this sto­ry and the pe­tro­le­um deal­ers could cer­tain­ly been more ef­fec­tive in pros­e­cut­ing their case pub­licly. As for the con­sumers, we all could have been a bit more in­quis­i­tive rather than jump­ing to con­clu­sions.