The first thing Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley needs to talk about on his re­turn to T&T to­mor­row, more than his health, is Gov­ern­ment’s plan to sell Paria Fu­el Trad­ing.

That is the view of Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) po­lit­i­cal leader David Ab­du­lah, while the Op­po­si­tion UNC lashed out at the Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day af­ter a news­pa­per re­port­ed that Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings chair­man Wil­fred Es­pinet had said there was no rea­son for Gov­ern­ment to keep the state owned en­er­gy sub­sidiary.

Es­pinet said a re­quest for pro­pos­al has been is­sued for Paria as well as for the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery. He said there is no strate­gic rea­son for the state to keep Paria once fu­el se­cu­ri­ty and fu­el com­pet­i­tive­ness can be guar­an­teed and the com­pa­ny shouldn’t be owned since “the way we do it, you’ll lose mon­ey,”

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin Khan didn’t re­spond to ques­tions about whether he sup­port­ed Es­pinet’s view and if this was planned all along. The OW­TU, which has bid for the re­fin­ery, didn’t re­spond to calls for com­ment.

How­ev­er, speak­ing on a ra­dio pro­gramme yes­ter­day, MSJ’s Ab­du­lah said: “Three months af­ter we warned Trinidad and To­ba­go, we’ve been vin­di­cat­ed. No less than the Prime Min­is­ter should ex­plain this im­me­di­ate­ly . . . to­mor­row.

“The oil in­dus­try’s health has been ag­gra­vat­ed by this abom­inable de­ci­sion to sell these as­sets. Mouth open, sto­ry jump out on Es­pinet’s part. Trinidad and To­ba­go now knows the nar­ra­tive they told Trinidad and To­ba­go last year on Petrotrin was a lie.

“Row­ley, Es­pinet, et al should be held ac­count­able for ma­jor eco­nom­ic crimes and re­moved. The du­plic­i­ty of Es­pinet and oth­ers is naked­ly ap­par­ent now. They had tout­ed these new busi­ness mod­els as the way to go when every­one said es­tab­lish­ing a fu­el im­por­ta­tion com­pa­ny, in­clud­ing to sell to Cari­com, made no sense. Now Es­pinet is ad­mit­ting this and al­so to bor­row­ing $1 bil­lion to pay bul­let pay­ments and sev­er­ance.

“What will hap­pen to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s and Cari­com’s fu­el se­cu­ri­ty if Paria is sold? In­stead of so­lu­tions on Petrotrin, Trinidad and To­ba­go is head­ing deep­er in debt and Her­itage oil pro­duc­tion fell al­so.”

Ab­du­lah said the cost of the Petrotrin equa­tion to T&T will be huge.

He added: “Lake As­phalt is ter­mi­nat­ing work­ers since, mi­nus the re­fin­ery, they must im­port bi­tu­men. Trin­mar field op­er­a­tors are al­so lay­ing off.”

Op­po­si­tion whip David Lee said in a state­ment: “Gov­ern­ment’s lies and its be­tray­al of cit­i­zens con­cern­ing Petrotrin is now clear giv­en Es­pinet’s state­ments. Of­fer­ing Paria for sale comes as a slap in the face to cit­i­zens still com­ing to terms with Petrotrin be­ing torn apart to the detri­ment of thou­sands.

“This ap­pears to be a con job per­pe­trat­ed from the very top. Their ac­tions were al­ways geared to­wards po­si­tion­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s na­tion­al pat­ri­mo­ny to be sold. Es­pinet must now say who our rev­enue streams are be­ing sold to, what pro­cure­ment method’s be­ing used, what mea­sures are be­ing im­ple­ment­ed to guar­an­tee Trinidad and To­ba­go’s fu­el se­cu­ri­ty and price sta­bil­i­ty? “

He said Gov­ern­ment hid its re­al in­tent from the start and had “pulled the wool over cit­i­zens’ eyes” and added that Es­pinet’s “fool­ish ra­tio­nale” that Paria can­not be prof­itable “ is to­tal­ly con­tra­dic­to­ry to what they told cit­i­zens be­fore.”

Lee said Gov­ern­ment and Es­pinet were act­ing as if the state as­sets be­longed to them.

“Is­sues con­cern­ing such pub­lic as­sets should have been brought for dis­cus­sion and scruti­ny to Par­lia­ment’s over­sight En­er­gy Com­mit­tee which hasn’t con­vened since Feb­ru­ary 2018. Gov­ern­ment is now plac­ing them on the chop­ping block to be sold free of debt, unions and all oth­er is­sues, which make them very fi­nan­cial­ly at­trac­tive to the pri­vate sec­tor.

“But fur­ther hard­ships await. Sale of Paria would mean to­tal re­moval of all sub­si­dies and an in­crease in fu­el prices.

Cit­i­zens would be at the mer­cy of those who seek prof­it and job loss­es will loom with the pos­si­ble clo­sure of Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um which would no longer be need­ed as the new own­ers of Paria would like­ly un­der­take their own dis­tri­b­u­tion,” he warned.