Akash Sama­roo

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Se­nior Re­porter

The Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is ac­cus­ing the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance of seek­ing to sell off Trinidad and To­ba­go’s “fam­i­ly jew­els” in a bid to save the coun­try from fi­nan­cial hard­ships.

Dur­ing de­bate on the Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Bill 2024 yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark claimed that the gov­ern­ment is look­ing to of­fload four of this coun­try’s ma­jor state en­ter­pris­es.

Mark start­ed with the Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (PATT).

“We want to know Mr. Pres­i­dent whether the gov­ern­ment in­tends to sell out the PATT,” Mark thun­dered in the sen­ate.

The pri­vati­sa­tion of the Port has been a con­tentious is­sue since the Gov­ern­ment sig­nalled its in­ten­tion to adopt a pub­lic-pri­vate mod­el to op­er­ate the as­set in 2020.

Both the Op­po­si­tion and the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers Trade Union (SWW­TU) ex­pressed con­cerns that such a move would lead to mas­sive lay­offs.

At the time PATT Chair­man Lyle Alexan­der said pri­vati­sa­tion was the key to its eco­nom­ic sur­vival.

In 2022, the Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter said the Re­quest for Pro­pos­als would be is­sued.

Shift­ing fo­cus to oth­er state as­sets, Mark claimed the gov­ern­ment is look­ing to do the same with three oth­er com­pa­nies.

“We want to know. Mr. Pres­i­dent, if the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to sell or pri­va­tise fur­ther First Cit­i­zen’s Bank (FCB). They must tell the coun­try if they will sell out FCB. We want the Gov­ern­ment to tell T&T whether their in­ten­tion is to sell out Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um un­der the guise of lib­er­al­i­sa­tion and dereg­u­la­tion. And Mr. Pres­i­dent we want the gov­ern­ment to tell T&T whether it is their in­ten­tion to sell out TSTT. Is the Gov­ern­ment go­ing to sell TSTT to ATN, which is based in At­lanta?” Mark ques­tioned while his Op­po­si­tion col­leagues mur­mured in sup­port.

In Sep­tem­ber, the Prime Min­is­ter stat­ed that no de­ci­sion had yet been made on the fu­ture of the Gov­ern­ment’s ma­jor­i­ty share­hold­ing in the com­pa­ny, even though a pro­fes­sion­al as­sess­ment of TSTT was un­der­way.

Mean­while in 2020, then En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin Khan an­nounced that Gov­ern­ment would sell all gas sta­tions owned by NP to the pri­vate sec­tor with NP serv­ing as a whole­saler.

Sen­a­tor Mark then turned his at­ten­tion to Cli­co and ac­cused the gov­ern­ment of in­ten­tion­al­ly un­der­valu­ing Cli­co’s shares.

“The gov­ern­ment must tell this coun­try, how come they sold 56.53 per cent Cli­co’s shares in Methanol Hold­ings In­ter­na­tion­al Ltd (MHIL) for $300 mil­lion less than the val­u­a­tion. The gov­ern­ment must tell the coun­try why they un­der­val­ued that MHIL and sold it to the Pro­man group of com­pa­nies through a com­pa­ny called Con­sol­i­dat­ed En­er­gy Ltd,” Mark bel­lowed in the Up­per House.

The Sen­a­tor said he hoped this would be Min­is­ter Im­bert’s last chance at han­dling the na­tion’s fi­nances as he claimed the min­is­ter over­saw a decade of debt, de­cay and dec­i­ma­tion.