KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) chief ed­u­ca­tion and re­search of­fi­cer Ozzi War­wick has blamed the 2018 clo­sure of Petrotrin for T&T’s for­eign ex­change woes.

Speak­ing at a Cipri­ani Col­lege of Labour and Co-op­er­a­tive Stud­ies (CCLCS) pan­el dis­cus­sion ti­tled What’s in it for Labour, War­wick ar­gued that Petrotrin’s shut­down se­vere­ly im­pact­ed the coun­try’s for­eign ex­change and rev­enue gen­er­a­tion, trig­ger­ing the on­go­ing forex short­age.

This week, busi­ness­men com­plained about is­sues ac­cess­ing for­eign ex­change to pay for es­sen­tial goods. The own­er of Ram­saran Dairy Prod­ucts Ra­j­nanan Ram­saran wrote to the IMF and oth­er agen­cies over the is­sue.

War­wick claimed the clo­sure was “the worst eco­nom­ic de­ci­sion of any gov­ern­ment,” not­ing that Petrotrin, a ma­jor for­eign ex­change earn­er, had not been rec­om­mend­ed for clo­sure by any of­fi­cial eval­u­a­tion com­mit­tees.

Gov­ern­ment, how­ev­er, has main­tained that Petrotrin was not shut down but re­struc­tured, with­draw­ing from the re­fin­ing busi­ness. Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Ltd is cur­rent­ly ne­go­ti­at­ing with three bid­ders in­ter­est­ed in the for­mer Petrotrin re­fin­ery at Pointe-a-Pierre.

War­wick high­light­ed the pro­duc­tion de­cline since Petrotrin’s clo­sure, which he said has been detri­men­tal to the oil and gas in­dus­tries and the broad­er econ­o­my. Oil pro­duc­tion fell by 18.2 per cent from Jan­u­ary to De­cem­ber 2023, and gas pro­duc­tion de­creased from 2.7 bil­lion cu­bic feet (BCF) per day in Jan­u­ary 2023 to 2.5 BCF in De­cem­ber. By June, nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion had dropped be­low two BCF per day for the first time in over two decades, a sta­tis­tic he at­trib­uted to “a failed en­er­gy pol­i­cy and lax reg­u­la­to­ry over­sight.”

“These loss­es, un­for­tu­nate­ly, are now be­ing borne by or­di­nary peo­ple, who are treat­ed with con­tempt and dis­dain,” War­wick said. He stressed that Petrotrin’s clo­sure ex­ac­er­bat­ed the for­eign ex­change cri­sis, now one of the biggest is­sues im­pact­ing the work­ing class. Ac­cord­ing to War­wick, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert’s re­cent $54.2 bil­lion fis­cal pre­sen­ta­tion con­veyed a dis­mis­sive tone to­wards State ser­vices, as though cit­i­zens should feel priv­i­leged to re­ceive gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance.

“This is the Gov­ern­ment’s men­tal­i­ty. They do not be­lieve that or­di­nary peo­ple should ben­e­fit from the coun­try’s re­sources.”

CCLCS lec­tur­er Trevor John­son crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment’s re­cent five per cent wage pro­pos­al for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers, not­ing that many are sur­viv­ing on 2013 wages. He not­ed a few set­tle­ments ex­tend­ing as far back as 2019. With 2025 ap­proach­ing, John­son ar­gued, work­ers faced prices from 2024 mar­kets with out­dat­ed salaries.

“We are ex­pect­ing those work­ers to find mon­ey to come to work, pay their bills, and af­ford gov­ern­ment charges that have in­creased over the years,” John­son said.

Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ake­ba Wil­son crit­i­cised the re­cent in­crease in the min­i­mum wage for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers. A $2 per hour hike means a work­er now earns around $3,600 month­ly, which, she point­ed out, bare­ly cov­ers rent for sin­gle par­ents with mul­ti­ple chil­dren.