PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

De­spite the re­cent an­nounce­ment of the down­siz­ing of its work­force in T&T, Pro­man is look­ing for­ward to good news in the up­com­ing bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion.

When asked about the Oc­to­ber 12 bud­get for the 2027 fis­cal year, deputy man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Pro­man T&T, Giselle Thomp­son, said giv­en re­cent an­nounce­ments with­in the en­er­gy sec­tor, the com­pa­ny is ex­pect­ing en­cour­ag­ing news.

She said, “There’s been lots of key en­er­gy an­nounce­ments in the past few weeks, and we un­der­stand a few more to come. I think we re­main quite op­ti­mistic on the out­look for im­proved gas sup­ply in the com­ing months and years ahead. And I think very im­por­tant to the con­tin­ued sus­tain­abil­i­ty of our down­stream in­dus­tries. So we’re look­ing for­ward to the bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion.”

She spoke with re­porters af­ter Pro­man launched a new book chron­i­cling the his­to­ry of In­dus­tri­al Plant Ser­vices Ltd (IP­SL), now Pro­man Op­er­a­tions.

News that the bud­get date was set for Oc­to­ber 12 broke on Thurs­day while the event was un­der­way.

Last week, Pro­man an­nounced plans to re­duce the com­pa­ny’s work­force as a re­sult of un­cer­tain nat­ur­al gas sup­plies in Trinidad. These short­ages have pre­vent­ed Pro­man from op­er­at­ing all of its Point Lisas plants con­sis­tent­ly at full ca­pac­i­ty.

How­ev­er, Thomp­son would not give ad­di­tion­al de­tails about that sit­u­a­tion. She said, “Right now we’re in the mid­dle of a con­sul­ta­tion process with our em­ploy­ees, and we’re re­spect­ing that process, so there’s noth­ing we can share at this point in time, but if there is more then we will share it.”

The book, In­dus­tri­al Plant Ser­vices Ltd: His­tor­i­cal Evo­lu­tion and Pi­o­neer­ing Role in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Glob­al­ly Com­pet­i­tive Petro­chem­i­cal In­dus­try, 1999 - 2019, is a de­tailed ac­count of IP­SL’s con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of Point Lisas.

At the launch, Pro­man al­so an­nounced the new schol­ar­ship in ho­n­our of Clin­ton B. Ram­ber­ans­ingh and his long­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to men­tor­ship and tech­ni­cal train­ing. The ini­tia­tive will sup­port T&T na­tion­als pur­su­ing in­dus­try-rel­e­vant tech­ni­cal train­ing and forms part of Pro­man’s con­tin­ued in­vest­ment in de­vel­op­ing lo­cal tal­ent.

Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee al­so spoke with me­dia at the event. He said the coun­try should be pleased with an­nounce­ments with re­gard to hous­ing in the bud­get.

“I want to as­sure the peo­ple, un­der the lead­er­ship of the Ho­n­ourable Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, we will have a very trans­par­ent and ac­count­able process. Fear not, I say to the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, so we are very hope­ful, you know. We are still con­strained by rev­enues, which is why we are go­ing in the PPP mod­el to be able to bring homes for the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said, adding that the re­cent amend­ment of the pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion should help grow the con­struc­tion sec­tor and the econ­o­my.