Kevon Felmine

Se­nior Re­porter
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The Point Fortin Taxi Dri­vers’ As­so­ci­a­tion is call­ing on Gov­ern­ment to en­sure a prop­er sup­ply of Com­pressed Nat­ur­al Gas (CNG) is de­liv­ered to Point Fortin.

As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent John David yes­ter­day not­ed that while dri­vers in Point Fortin strug­gled to ac­cess CNG, there are three fu­el sta­tions in San Fer­nan­do—Mon Re­pos, Co­coyea, and Rush­worth Street—that of­fer the fu­el.

He made the com­plaint as he not­ed mo­torists along the south­west­ern penin­su­la are fac­ing long dri­ves to San Fer­nan­do, where they of­ten wait over 30 min­utes to fill their CNG tanks.

In protest, taxi dri­vers and reg­u­lar mo­torists parked their ve­hi­cles at the RJT Ser­vice Sta­tion at Frisco Junc­tion, which pro­vides all oth­er forms of fu­el.

Stand­ing be­fore a non-func­tion­ing CNG pump, David ex­plained that the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) in­stalled the equip­ment ap­prox­i­mate­ly four years ago, fol­low­ing the break­down of the old pumps 11 years pri­or. Af­ter speak­ing with the fu­el sta­tion own­er, dri­vers re­alised that CNG would not be avail­able in Point Fortin any­time soon.

David said he has raised the is­sue with Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Point Fortin MP Kennedy Richards Jr and for­mer may­or Saleema Thomas, but no ac­tion has been tak­en.

“We need to get CNG in Point Fortin. It is a big prob­lem. We have peo­ple from Ica­cos, Erin, and even Siparia and Fyz­abad who need CNG here. Now, cars come CNG-ready; you no longer have to in­stall CNG kits in your car,” David ex­plained.

He con­tin­ued, “We are ap­peal­ing to the Gov­ern­ment for help. We are ap­peal­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter for help. We are ap­peal­ing to those in charge to as­sist us in get­ting CNG in Point Fortin. It is about time.”

David em­pha­sised that al­though Point Fortin is an oil, gas, fish­ing, and farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty that sup­plies the na­tion, it feels as though the au­thor­i­ties have for­got­ten about the peo­ple who live there.

“We need them to re­mem­ber that we need CNG in Point Fortin.”

He said many peo­ple switched to CNG years ago, en­cour­aged by the Gov­ern­ment’s push for clean­er fu­el to pro­mote a health­i­er en­vi­ron­ment. He al­so not­ed that con­vert­ing a ve­hi­cle to CNG costs be­tween $13,000 and $16,000 for 70-litre and 100-litre kits re­spec­tive­ly.

Point Fortin-San Fer­nan­do taxi dri­ver Clive Bernard, who has been dri­ving a CNG-pow­ered ve­hi­cle for the last eight years, al­so dri­ves to Mon Re­pos to re­fu­el. Ac­cord­ing to Bernard, al­most all 135 taxi dri­vers in the as­so­ci­a­tion, along with PH taxi dri­vers and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, use CNG.

“Mr Row­ley, why? Gov­ern­ment, why? NGC, why? Why do we al­ways have to fight and protest for you to do what you know you are sup­posed to do? What is the prob­lem? Why do we al­ways have to fight for some­thing?” he asked.

“We have a gas sta­tion that is out­fit­ted with every­thing, and the min­istry has giv­en all the di­rec­tives. Yet, for some rea­son, they are not open­ing the CNG fa­cil­i­ty in Point Fortin.”

In a re­sponse yes­ter­day, NGC Green said while CNG has not been avail­able at the NP sta­tion at Frisco Junc­tion be­tween 2022 and 2023, it in­stalled a new CNG sys­tem at the lo­ca­tion (dis­penser, stor­age, com­pres­sor) to pro­vide a state-of-the-art fill­ing ex­pe­ri­ence when op­er­a­tions re­sume. It said in line with the equip­ment up­grade, there was al­so a re­view of the in­tegri­ty of the nat­ur­al gas sup­ply pipeline net­work and con­tracts to pro­vide fu­el to the fa­cil­i­ty.

“This rigid process is on­go­ing and es­sen­tial for en­sur­ing the full, re­li­able and safe op­er­a­tion of the CNG sys­tem when op­er­a­tion re­sumes. NGC Green ap­pre­ci­ates the need for CNG avail­abil­i­ty on this route and we are work­ing to achieve this goal,” NGC Green said.