‘This is contempt of court’

OPPOSITION Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar has described a letter yesterday from Petrotrin on the distribution of letters of termination to employees as contempt of court.

She was responding yesterday to the 2018/2019 budget in Parliament.

Persad-Bissessar said during her presentation, she was handed the letter dated October 5 and signed by executive director Reynold Ajodhasingh which told workers the distribution of termination letters would begin yesterday morning and they were to collect the letters in the ballroom.

“How contemptuous.”

She also referred to a matter in court, likely the matter before the Industrial Court in which the Oilfield Workers’ Trade Union has applied for an injunction to stop Petrotrin from terminating workers pending the adjudication of an alleged industrial relations offence.

“This is a contempt of court,” she said.

She said the closure means nearly 5,000 skilled workers will out of a job by next month and she did not agree with the Prime Minister that the numbers do not matter, since these are human beings with families.

She called on the government not to shut down the refinery and announced her intention to write to President Paula Mae-Weekes asking her to exercise her power as the head of state to advise the Prime Minister to hold his hand on the sale of any Petrotrin assets until the Procurement Act is fully proclaimed.

She also noted she has written to the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) asking whether a Certificate of Environmental Clearance had been granted for the decommissioning of the refinery.

“The closure of the Pointe-a-Pierre Refinery without satisfying the legal requirements of the Environmental Management Act can have catastrophic and cataclysmic effects on the environment that will last well into the future and cause irreparable loss and damage. This is a matter of great public importance which affects every citizen of our country, and in those circumstances I look forward to the EMA’s response.”

She accused the Government of wanting to sell the refinery at “bargain-basement” prices to a preferred financier and closing it to prevent the discovery of records showing massive corruption by People’s National Movement operatives.

She said none of the reports commissioned recommended the closure and called on Government to say who advised them to shut down the refinery.

“Why would they try so hard to mislead the public? What about the matter of the fake oil and the Prime Minister’s best friend? What implications are there in this matter? Are there any PNM operatives allegedly implicated in massive corruption of millions of dollars of Petrotrin? They would have to close Petrotrin to ensure – the Petrotrin refinery – to ensure you don’t find them.”

She said the problems encountered at Petrotrin were primarily the result of corruption and mismanagement by the PNM over the years, including the ill-fated and scandalous World GTL project, which ended with Petrotrin spending $3.15 billion.

Persad-Bissessar said her administration took a failing Petrotrin and turned it around into a success story, while the PNM Government “ran it into the ground.” She also disputed Finance Minister Colm Imbert’s claim that Petrotrin had not paid taxes and was a burden to the economy and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative reported between 2010 and 2016 Petrotrin made payments of $20.2 billion.

She said this government has proved it is not prepared to listen to the people, the union or the experts.

“You will not be allowed to destroy our legacy in the petroleum sector. You will not be allowed to sell out our patrimony. You will no longer be allowed to abuse our citizens each and every day. We will fight you in here, we will oppose you in public and we will take you to the courts, and we will win.”