KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As the Petrotrin Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery ap­proach­es six years in moth­balled state, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says the Gov­ern­ment should be able to an­nounce whether it has found an op­er­a­tor by the end of Au­gust.

Row­ley yes­ter­day told sup­port­ers at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sports and Fam­i­ly Day at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, that the Cab­i­net will in­stall an eval­u­a­tion team to as­sess the of­fers sub­mit­ted by com­pa­nies that bid for the re­fin­ery. He said the team will have to eval­u­ate those who have the means to con­vince the Gov­ern­ment they are a good fit for the re­fin­ery.

Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get has warned that the union will not stand idly by and al­low any com­pa­ny to take over the re­fin­ery. With the OW­TU’s Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies and Tech­nolo­gies hav­ing been among the bid­ders for the re­fin­ery, he said they must be a part of the re­sump­tion.

How­ev­er, Row­ley yes­ter­day said ac­tion on the re­fin­ery will not have any­thing to do with “these mis­chie­vous trou­ble mark­ers who be­lieve that they can talk any non­sense any­time and the Gov­ern­ment will just sit back and take it.”

Row­ley said the PNM has tak­en de­ci­sions in the in­ter­est of T&T, al­though not all were pain­less.

He said Gov­ern­ment closed down the re­fin­ery and paid $2.7 bil­lion in sep­a­ra­tion to work­ers. He said the re­fin­ery has re­mained unutilised since 2018 and had re­sult­ed in par­lia­men­tar­i­ans quar­relling with the Gov­ern­ment, say­ing they are spend­ing $1 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly to up­keep the re­fin­ery.

Now that Gov­ern­ment says it is look­ing at po­ten­tial op­er­a­tors who may have the crude oil that Petrotrin did not have to run it, Row­ley said one union leader was singing ca­lyp­so, send­ing word for him to say the Gov­ern­ment would not be al­lowed to dis­pose of the re­fin­ery with­out his and his friends’ per­mis­sion.

“Well, I want to tell him to­day, when you own your own re­fin­ery, the Gov­ern­ment would not in­ter­fere with it. But the re­fin­ery that is owned by the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, un­til you are in the gov­ern­ment or the prime min­is­ter, go and sing your ca­lyp­so to your friends else­where and stop talk­ing stu­pid­ness.”

PM: Rag­bir act­ed in T&T’s in­ter­est

With the Par­lia­ment fi­nal­ly pass­ing the Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Bill, 2022, last Fri­day, Row­ley said the UNC did not want that leg­is­la­tion be­cause it was afraid of peo­ple’s rev­e­la­tions.

He said the PNM passed the bill, say­ing it would go alone if it had to. How­ev­er, he ac­knowl­edged it did not walk alone, as Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir walked with the PNM in the in­ter­est of the peo­ple of T&T.

“We know why those peo­ple do not want whistle­blow­er leg­is­la­tion and pro­tec­tion for whistle­blow­ers be­cause they are afraid of those who know what they know, that they will talk about whom they know do what they did. And you know that too.”

Row­ley told sup­port­ers there was an in­ves­ti­ga­tion at the par­lia­men­tary en­quiry lev­el in­to the con­duct of the largest con­tract award­ed in this coun­try: $7 bil­lion un­der the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led UNC. He re­peat­ed that con­trac­tor OAS Con­stru­to­ra went bank­rupt in April 2015 and the day be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tion in Sep­tem­ber 2016, the UNC re­moved a con­tract clause that al­lowed the Brazil­ian com­pa­ny to leave the project with $971 mil­lion.

To the de­niers, he said they on­ly had to look at the Par­lia­ment to see peo­ple on bail in lead­er­ship of the UNC. He said this could nev­er hap­pen in the PNM.

“I say to you, the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, if you do not stand up and de­mand high stan­dards, you will have all these peo­ple who have been iden­ti­fied as hav­ing ques­tions to an­swer putting them­selves for­ward, hop­ing that they would have poi­soned you so much against the PNM that you will put their record aside and for some­thing that they say, you will vote for them. Ladies and gen­tle­men, I want to say to you that the stan­dard that you must sub­scribe to to­day, is that re­gard­less of what the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship says, no per­son in this coun­try who has been ar­rest­ed by the po­lice for crim­i­nal con­duct, must be elect­ed in­to this coun­try’s par­lia­ment.”