Gail Alexan­der

Caribbean Air­line’s es­ti­mat­ed loss­es from March 23 to April 30 due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic was US14.2 mil­lion or TT$96.1 mil­lion, ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Allyson West.

She gave the in­for­ma­tion in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day in re­sponse to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress sen­a­tor Wade Mark’s query.

West said the im­pact took ef­fect from the start of March due to a drop in de­mand for air trav­el and was ex­ac­er­bat­ed by the clo­sure of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s bor­ders in March al­so be­cause op­er­at­ing had be­come too risky.

De­spite air trav­el be­ing re­strict­ed, she said CAL has still been re­quired to main­tain all its op­er­at­ing sys­tems.

“Notwith­stand­ing the fact that air trav­el is se­vere­ly re­strict­ed at present, the air­line is al­so be­ing re­quired to keep it air­line leas­es up to date and en­sure that its air­craft are air­wor­thy and all of its sys­tems are func­tion­ing in readi­ness for the re­sump­tion of flights,” West said.

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion at the COVID-19 up­date over the week­end, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so not­ed that it was very cost­ly to keep the air­line go­ing even while the fleet was ground­ed.

“Caribbean Air­lines, look­ing at the out­side world, would be op­er­a­tional at the first op­por­tu­ni­ty it gets be­cause it’s cost­ing us mon­ey now to keep Caribbean Air­lines where it is, main­tained and not work­ing. The rea­son why it’s not go­ing out­side is be­cause of the lev­el of risk in­volved,” the PM said.

Row­ley said one of the first ac­tions to cush­ion the con­tin­u­ing loss­es may be char­tered ser­vices to get peo­ple to des­ti­na­tions or back home.

Al­so in the Sen­ate, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin Khan said it was very lucky that the re­cent sab­o­tage and cut­ting of pipelines at Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd hadn’t oc­curred with a gas line. He was re­ply­ing to an Op­po­si­tion query on the June 19 re­port of sab­o­tage and theft.

Khan said the sit­u­a­tion in­volved more than sab­o­tage since peo­ple were cut­ting three-inch pipes with a weld­ing torch to steal “fence posts.”

“I wouldn’t say it was a com­mon prac­tice but in the south-west penin­su­la where there’s been hun­dreds of miles of pipeline, it has been a peren­ni­al prob­lem over the years,” Khan added.

“But what hap­pened with the sab­o­tage/theft was a dan­ger­ous ex­er­cise—while it was lucky it was a dor­mant line which was cut in­to and it had no fu­el, oil or gas pass­ing through, what would have hap­pened if it was a gas line —it would have been a ma­jor dis­as­ter…for two fence posts, it isn’t worth the risk.”

He said af­ter the in­ci­dent oc­curred, Her­itage im­me­di­ate­ly re­port­ed it to Bar­rack­pore po­lice and will al­so in­crease mo­bile pa­trols with po­lice as­sis­tance.

Khan added that the com­pa­ny is al­so seek­ing com­mu­ni­ty help to mon­i­tor Her­itage as­sets and is im­ple­ment­ing CCTV sys­tems with a hot­line for such in­ci­dents to be re­port­ed.

“So hope­ful­ly, this will al­le­vi­ate and bring such in­ci­dents in fu­ture to a ze­ro po­si­tion,” he said.

Khan said the com­mu­ni­ty had over decades been the “watch­man” of Petrotrin be­fore.

On an­oth­er Op­po­si­tion ques­tion, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi said for the first time there’s been re­de­fined fund­ing for the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions’ di­vi­sion and among in­no­va­tions, the new Port-of-Spain of­fice for the DPP – on Park Street – will be open in weeks.

Al-Rawi and UNC’s Wade Mark trad­ed veiled barbs, con­grat­u­lat­ing each oth­er re­spec­tive­ly for “new-found in­ter­est” in the DPP’s of­fice and for “new-found in­ter­est” in ac­com­mo­da­tion.

West’s replies on the bank­ing in­sti­tu­tions with which Gov­ern­ment has debt oblig­a­tions al­so prompt­ed Mark to try to get her to say if NCB Glob­al Fi­nance was among these.

But while she cit­ed FCB, Re­pub­lic, Sco­tia­bank ANSA Mer­chant Bank and oth­er in­sti­tu­tions, West told Mark, “Sor­ry to dis­ap­point you, Sen­a­tor Mark, NCB Glob­al is not what I said.”