PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

For­mer En­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young has ques­tioned the wis­dom be­hind the re­moval of Safe To Work (STOW) cer­ti­fi­ca­tion re­quire­ments for state-owned en­er­gy com­pa­nies.

Young not­ed that sev­er­al for­eign com­pa­nies op­er­at­ed plants and en­er­gy projects in T&T and the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion may be part of in­ter­na­tion­al re­quire­ments.

“It does con­cern me be­cause of course STOW cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is all about safe­ty. That is what it is about, it is en­sur­ing we have in­ter­na­tion­al safe­ty stan­dards,” said Young, who ad­mit­ted he still need­ed to see an of­fi­cial doc­u­ment con­cern­ing the re­moval of STOW for lo­cal com­pa­nies, when asked about the change out­side Par­lia­ment on Fri­day.

He said, “One of the ques­tions I have is, is that a gov­ern­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion or is that a pri­vate cer­ti­fi­ca­tion that is re­quired by in­ter­na­tion­al com­pa­nies be­cause most of the plants on Point Lisas have in­ter­na­tion­al share­hold­ers and they are re­quired to do so. For ex­am­ple, our off­shore plat­forms, owned by in­ter­na­tion­al-multi­na­tion­al oil and gas com­pa­nies, they are the ones that re­quire the safe­ty.”

The Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) al­so is­sued a state­ment on Fri­day con­firm­ing its full sup­port of the re­moval of STOW as well as the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­cent state­ments and clear po­si­tion with re­spect to the En­er­gy Cham­ber of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The re­lease which was signed by OW­TU pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get said, “The OW­TU has long iden­ti­fied the con­tra­dic­tion where the STOW cer­ti­fi­ca­tion has been pro­mot­ed as a bench­mark for health and safe­ty com­pli­ance, but re­cent and trag­ic events ex­pose the false­hood that STOW cer­ti­fi­ca­tion guar­an­tees work­ers’ safe­ty.”

The OW­TU point­ed to the Paria divers tragedy and the Rig 110 In­ci­dent which led to Pe­ter Phillip be­ing trapped on the col­lapsed plat­form, with his body still to be re­cov­ered.

The OW­TU al­so agreed that the “En­er­gy Cham­ber is self-serv­ing and likened to an elit­ist club. They serve on­ly in the in­ter­est of the multi­na­tion­als and top lo­cal con­trac­tors who en­joy un­bri­dled ac­cess to the peo­ple’s re­sources in the en­er­gy sec­tor.”

In re­sponse to the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to re­move the Safe To Work (STOW) cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for State-owned en­er­gy com­pa­nies, the En­er­gy Cham­ber dis­closed it will re­im­burse com­pa­nies that have sub­mit­ted pay­ments for au­dits.

The Cham­ber in an email to mem­bers said, “Con­trac­tors who have paid for a STOW au­dit that has not yet start­ed may choose to can­cel. If you wish to do so, you will re­ceive a full re­im­burse­ment.”

It al­so stat­ed, “Con­trac­tors with an au­dit un­der­way may choose whether to com­plete the process. If you de­cide not to pro­ceed, fees will be set­tled with the as­ses­sor for work com­plet­ed to date, and you will be re­im­bursed for the re­main­ing bal­ance.”

Dur­ing Thurs­day’s post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal an­nounced the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to ter­mi­nate the STOW regime and re­vert to the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Health and Safe­ty codes that ex­ist­ed pri­or to its in­tro­duc­tion.

Mooni­lal said STOW “forms no part of the laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” and stat­ed it had been de­vel­oped through “some type of agree­ment, char­ter, be­tween the En­er­gy Cham­ber and sev­er­al of the multi­na­tion­al en­er­gy com­pa­nies,” with the in­volve­ment of state en­ter­pris­es.

The an­nounce­ment came days af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar crit­i­cised the En­er­gy Cham­ber and stat­ed STOW was a bar­ri­er to en­try for lo­cal com­pa­nies seek­ing jobs with­in the en­er­gy sec­tor.