Sean Nero

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Nicole Olivierre says all but one of the 137 ser­vice sta­tions in this coun­try are op­er­at­ing il­le­gal­ly and the state will give op­er­a­tors of these busi­ness­es six months to reg­u­larise their sta­tus.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day's of­fi­cial open­ing of the NP St Christo­pher's Ser­vice Sta­tion on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, the min­is­ter said the sit­u­a­tion was one for se­ri­ous con­cern.

"For the past five years ser­vice sta­tions have been al­lowed to op­er­ate with­out valid re­tail mar­ket­ing li­cences. Right now as I stand here, I can say with­out fear or con­tra­dic­tion that of the 137 ser­vice sta­tions cur­rent­ly op­er­at­ing in T&T, this St Christo­pher Taxi Cab Co-Op­er­a­tive Ser­vice Sta­tion is the on­ly one that is op­er­at­ing with a valid re­tail mar­ket­ing li­cence," she said.

"The fact that all of oth­er ser­vice sta­tions are op­er­at­ing with­out a li­cence is an un­ten­able sit­u­a­tion which has been al­lowed to con­tin­ue for far too long. To­day's cer­e­mo­ny sig­nals that the sit­u­a­tion will per­sist no more. This gov­ern­ment has be­gun to bring to an end this un­de­sir­able and un­safe state of af­fairs. As min­is­ter, I will en­sure that this sec­tor op­er­ates ac­cord­ing to the clear­ly de­fined rules and reg­u­la­tions which are ap­plic­a­ble to all."

Olivierre said be­fore the ap­proval giv­en re­cent­ly to the NP St Christo­pher Ser­vice Sta­tion, the last time a li­cence–which has a life of one year–was is­sued to a lo­cal ser­vice sta­tion was in Feb­ru­ary 2010 un­der the Patrick Man­ning-led PNM gov­ern­ment.

"The min­istry is ag­gres­sive­ly seek­ing to bring all ser­vice sta­tions un­der the reg­u­la­tions and is work­ing with the in­di­vid­ual ser­vice sta­tion own­ers, and the op­er­a­tors NP and Petrotrin, as well as, the pe­tro­le­um deal­ers as­so­ci­a­tion to en­sure full com­pli­ance," she said.

"The Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries has giv­en care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion to our role in the man­age­ment and reg­u­la­tion of the pe­tro­le­um sec­tor. The um­brel­la leg­is­la­tion gov­ern­ing the pe­tro­le­um sec­tor is the Pe­tro­le­um Act 1969 Chap­ter 62:01. The reg­u­la­tions which gov­ern pe­tro­le­um op­er­a­tions were de­vel­oped un­der Sec­tion 29 of the Act and pro­vide for in­ter alia the grant­i­ng of a mar­ket­ing li­cence with re­spect of the con­duct of re­tail trans­ac­tions at petro filled sta­tions."