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Wednesday, May 21, 2025

Govt team to review latest Petrotrin refinery bids

by

331 days ago
20240624
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley delivers his keynote address at PNM’s Sports and Family Day yesterday.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley delivers his keynote address at PNM’s Sports and Family Day yesterday.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

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.”


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