DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) says it is not sur­prised by the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion not to short­list the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union’s Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed for the pur­chase of the moth­balled Petrotrin re­fin­ery in Point-a-Pierre.

The cho­sen bid­ders in­clude CRO Con­sor­tium, a Trinidad-based group made up of DR Com­modi­ties Ltd, Chemie-Tech, and Ocala; US-based iN­ca En­er­gy LLC; and Nige­ria-based Dan­do PLC. These se­lec­tions were made by Sco­tia Cap­i­tal (USA) and an eval­u­a­tion com­mit­tee.

How­ev­er, dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers Union (BIG­WU) head­quar­ters in Barataria yes­ter­day, JTUM Pres­i­dent An­cel Ro­get Ro­get sug­gest­ed the Gov­ern­ment was act­ing spite­ful­ly by re­ject­ing Pa­tri­ot­ic.

“We, along with our com­rades in the lead­er­ship of the Joint Trade Union Move­ment, are out­side call­ing at­ten­tion to the mal-gov­er­nance, we are out­side call­ing at­ten­tion to the lack of at­ten­tion to work­ers’ is­sues, we are out­side talk­ing about the crime, we are out­side talk­ing about the oner­ous prop­er­ty tax, we are out­side talk­ing about the dic­ta­to­r­i­al ap­proach tak­en by a par­tic­u­lar mem­ber of the in­dus­tri­al court—the chair­man of the ESD. We are out­side call­ing for his re­moval. We are out­side talk­ing about Im­bert’s in­com­pe­tence. In oth­er words, we are speak­ing out against all the ills in Trinidad and To­ba­go com­mit­ted by this vin­dic­tive PNM gov­ern­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go. And we ex­pect­ed that, be­cause we are do­ing that, they would not be fair and al­low us to re­alise the re­fin­ery for every­body to ben­e­fit.”

He af­firmed their com­mit­ment to con­tin­ue con­demn­ing the Gov­ern­ment for its ac­tions and stand­ing firm against the prop­er­ty tax.